


Soldiers of Misfortune

by Belfire



Series: The Joker's Son [2]
Category: Batman (Comics), Deathstroke the Terminator (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Violence, Brutal Murder, Dark fic, Disturbing stuff, Dubious Consent, Elements of Horror, Gang Violence, Gun Violence, Jason is fucking nuts, Lost Memories, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Protective Bruce Wayne, Protective Slade Wilson, Red Hood don't trust no one, Slade is the worst parent in the history of anything, The Lazarus Pit makes people crazy, Torture, Twisted, american horror story inspired, black mail, fuck happiness, gang lord Jason, that should tell you a lot already, this is the fic that came after the fic no one wanted, totally completely off the rails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-02-16 12:33:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 58,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18691594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belfire/pseuds/Belfire
Summary: Welcome to Gotham, the personalised and comfortable hell Jason made for himself overnight. For what he wanted, men had to die, friendships needed to burn, trust made like the dinosaurs and died out, but it couldn't be any more perfect. Jason's been to hell and found he liked it enough to replicate his own version.And no vigilante dressed like a bat or mercenary pirate look-alike were taking that from him. They willingly stepped through the fiery gates, now they would face the red hooded devil who ruled beyond them.Who the hell is Red Hood? He's a lot of things and crazy is all of them.





	1. Welcome To Hell

**Author's Note:**

> What is up, my dudes? It is moi, ya resident bitch with no social life so I just write and fucking write things people are going to therapy because of. I stayed away for like a week, okay? I tried but here I am again since I love this hell storm.

"What do you mean you can't fucking catch him?!" Jason swore and his sentence was finished with the crack of his balled fist colliding with Grant's unprotected jawline, the blow whipping his head to the side and making him stumble, though not by much. He was of a stronger, more durable build, he knew to brace himself by now when Jason was frustrated.

Keeping his cool, Grant rubbed at the red mark when he returned his gaze to Jason, cold and inwardly wishing for his ex-friend's immediate demise. He often fantasised fucking slitting his throat or breaking his neck, any quick and sure way to get rid of him.

"This cape isn't a kid like the others. He's trained and well so. He knows his shit and right now, he's playing it safe, out of our reach." Just weeks ago, a phantom of a vigilante got past the wall now surrounding Gotham and was doing some serious damage on Jason's criminal empire, all in the name of defeating Red Hood. No one knew who this guy was but a number of eye-witness accounts claimed it was a man dressed as a Bat. Honestly, it made Grant think back on the Batman, an urban legend that was in its peak during his childhood but the tale died down, he hadn't heard it in years. Still though....

"You were raised by fucking  _Deathstroke_ , how can you not do this small thing?" Jason snapped and in his head, Grant rolled his eyes.

"Jason, it's fucking  _ignorant_  to assume no one can beat me because of who my  _father_  is." And it's not like dad was ever home  _to_  raise him so that was a moot point. Grant couldn't say he even knew where in the world (or off it) Slade was at that very moment.

"Ignorant, huh?"

"Yeah.  _Ignorant_." His arms crossed over his kevlar padded suit and ammo belt.

"And I'm doing everything in my fucking power to track this bat down, but you aren't making it easy. I need to be able to spend more time away from HQ." Recently, Jason's paranoia went into overdrive, he discovered a subterranean level of madness beneath the hundreds of layers he already inhabited. This, of course, meant Grant was to report in person to him every four hours or face the consequences. Consequences being the neural transmitter grafted to his spine would shock the ever-loving fuck out of him. The first shock was two hundred volts, the second doubled and the third would be fatal, all with ten-minute warning intervals to get the hell back. 

It was fucking  _nuts_.

" _No_." Jason predictably bit. "You don't get any extra time to do something this damn easy."

_If it's so fucking easy why don't you do it?_

Grant didn't say that aloud. Admittedly he was sorely tempted to but didn't, restraining himself was necessary if he wanted to keep live electricity from coursing through his body.

"Then  _what_  would you like me to do, blad?"

Jason's widened fingers moved back through his hair with a frustrated exhale. His cheeks were blown out. It was understandable that this was grinding his gears, this cape was really dragging his nerves taut with how he existed one moment and vanished into thin air the next. Grant was loving every second of watching him suffer.

"How about you fucking shut up for one second and let me think?" He snapped back, moments before he turned the two meters of proximity between them to less than a foot.

"I fucking  _hate_  you." He muttered murderously before, feather-light, Jason's fingerpads skimmed over Grant's cheek, curling to cup his jaw, hiding the mark he made under his palm. He didn't massively enjoy the touch but Grant was accustomed enough to it not to bristle anymore.

Now, Grant Wilson had  _always_  known his former best friend since childhood was gay, probably before he had any inkling himself. Everything about the way he acted around guys to the constant falling back on calling them 'sweetheart' and 'honey', not to mention 'darling' and - Grant's personal favourite - 'baby doll', gave it away.  _But_  he can't say he was aware Jason had romantic feelings for him, and honestly, he wasn't sure it was romance that drove his advances or just a sick struggle for dominance over everyone around him. Either way, Grant didn't love being part of it.

He'd wanted them to be friends, nothing else and Jason forced this twisted new element to their relationship.

With those thoughts, Grant came back to the moment with Jason's hand holding the back of his head and drawing him into a kiss. He went along willingly despite having the means to punch a hole through Jason. Grant wasn't the type to be too offended or wounded by something he wasn't 100% alright with. This affected him very little in the grand scheme of things so maybe he was somewhere there on the fence too.

Between his teeth, Jason pinched Grant's lower lip and tugged at it a while the other stared warily at him through his lashes. Scarily enough, or unsettlingly, Jason's eyes were always bolted wide open when he did this. Maybe he was paranoid to the point where he would never let anyone out of his sight, if just to blink? Well, he had a reason to be. If Grant was absolutely certain that killing Jason wouldn't somehow remotely set off the transmitter, then he would have done it ages ago.

Jason was a good bit shorter than him, Grant needed to crane his neck for their lips to meet and it did get slightly uncomfortable on his spinal structure. Seeming to sense that, Jason gave them a few inches of space but didn't pull back entirely, his hand gliding down Grant's face and settling around his throat, squeezing lightly. His two-coloured gaze studied the calm beat of life running through his veins, fixed on it too long for anyone's liking. Taking him by the wrist, Grant moved his hand back, away from him and Jason made no protest.

No, he didn't let Jason do whatever he pleased to him, a few pecks here and there and the occasional waking up in the same bed thing was about the point he drew the line. Grant stood very unwavering in where his limits arose and for one reason or another, Jason had some semblance of respect for that, no matter they both silently knew that if he really wanted to, Jason could force him into anything with the press of a button.

Grant held Jason's wrist for a full ten seconds of visual contact before letting him go, he jerked his limb back to himself.

"Go scour the city and don't you dare fucking come back here without that cape's head."

"Except every four hours, you mean."

A muscle in his jaw twitching, Jason's gaze hardened on him for that smart ass remark, fingers tightening around the switch that controlled the transmitter. Grant took it as the first and only warning he would get to shut his mouth and do his job. Order received, be it with a tinge of annoyance.

"Aye, aye, Jaybird." He huffed, rolling his eyes when he turned to leave the office, formerly the location where Black Mask plotted all of his schemes. Grant couldn't keep running this shitshow for Jason if he didn't hold onto the hope that one day very soon, he could skewer that deranged bitch on the point of his sword.

On his way to the door, Grant sent the item of clothing nailed to the wall a glance. It was a black Kevlar long-sleeved, stained by old blood and marked by a dulling blue V running from the fingertips, up the arms and joining the ends on the chest.

Jason had a thing with nailing items to walls, he had a piece of every mask he'd killed taking up wall space, not excluding the white eye patch a certain girl that maniac killed wore.

It made Grant flinch to remember.  _God_ , he hated his ex-playmate.

* * *

 

What this Red Hood character did to Gotham, Bruce had never seen anything the likes of it, and he'd tangoed with the goddamn Joker more times than he could count. That clown was a lunatic to the core, madder than reality should allow but the Bat had found menial comfort in the fact that  _surely_ , his home city would never be subject to a more dangerous man.

Then boom-bam, out of nowhere a leather jacket-clad gunslinger with an obvious biker fetish danced onto the scene to prove everything he'd ever assumed to be true as false. How did one person - who no one had ever heard of until the day - pop up out of seemingly nowhere, on his own take a city of thousands by storm overnight, and sentence every soul who protested him to death?

Who the hell was this Red Hood?

Whoever he was, Bruce had counted on his son being able to fight people like him off during that time he himself was unable to get home. But since he'd been here, no word or sign of Dick, his father was beginning to fear the rumours of Nightwing's death were true.

Something with the League went wrong, a mission involving zeta tube technology took an awry turn faster than he could counter and the next thing he knows, he's trapped in an alternate dimension. It wasn't for long, he didn't take a week to find his way back but as it turns out, time moved differently between the two locations and here, at home,  _years_  passed.

 _Years_. Three, to be exact.

And during that period, his son was killed, his home in ruin and a murder-happy crime lord running wild through the streets, slaughtering whosoever he pleased. There were walls around Gotham now, built of large grey stone taken from demolished buildings, topped with razor wire running the length of the construction and guns mounted on turrets. It was a fortress now. Getting in was hard, very hard, even for Batman.

To his mounting displeasure, Wayne Manor had been looted and burned to a crisp, foundations barely intact enough to protect the cave from view. That, thank god, remained undiscovered. Something at least was left, even if it was so small it barely made a difference.

Every waking moment Bruce spent looking for his son, he cursed himself for not being here when he was so desperately needed. If it was the last thing he did, he would find out exactly what happened to Dick and who did it. That part wasn't disclosed but the second he had their name....

His back to the wall of a burnt-out tower block, the Bat watched through the shattered glass of a vacant window as a troop of gunmen passed below, searching the streets in the name of finding him. Initially, Bruce had felt a notable pang of dread when he spotted the well-muscled sword bearer among them. Why? Well, his grey and black attire was obviously Deathstroke inspired and he was an individual he may well not be able to defeat, given the circumstances. He was worried Red Hood somehow managed to get Slade Wilson into his ranks.

But then, the lad took his mask off in one instance and to Bruce's surprise, he was barely legally an adult, if even that. If he wasn't wrong, that would be one of Slade's sons. 

Him and the rest of the men following his lead, they would be easy to take down but it wasn't the right moment. If he made a move now, he risked giving away his location and Hood certainly had back-up he could send in this direction within seconds of his patrol being attacked. Bruce wasn't so sure of himself that he didn't see he was outnumbered, he wasn't going to be able to take down a criminal empire of this size alone.

That would be suicide, he needed at least  _one_  other person on his side. Dick would be ideal but it was starting to look unlikely that Bruce would find him. Alive, that is. As long as the mission was far from over, he couldn't let emotion get in the way but once Hood was where he belonged, a high-security prison with the key thrown away, Bruce knew he would have a mental breakdown in the wake of his child's demise.

That inevitability he could only prolong.

It took a very special kind of person with a special skill set to sneak up on the Bat, which is why he wasn't prepared for the almost silent swish of metal sliding from a sheath to happen behind him. Gritting his teeth, Bruce's muscles tensed in preparation for a fight when he turned a fraction to the sword held within line to his throat. Through the white lenses of his cowl, his eyes met a single cold husky blue one.

"Haven't seen you for a while." Slade Wilson flatly remarked, fingers tightening around the leather bound hilt of his blade. Deathstroke was here too, huh? That could either be useful to Bruce or be the first sign of the apocalypse. Y'know, the apocalypse that happened after Catharsis, which is what the day Gotham fell was now dubbed.

"Are you here to fight me, Slade?" Bruce asked with an equally unenthusiastic tone. Sue him for not looking forward to battling the world's most feared mercenary. Even as Batman, taking down Deathstroke was not something that came easy and certainly not with no broken bones.

For a beat, Slade held the sword where it was, half a foot from giving Bruce's larynx a generous smooch as he studied him, but then as quickly as it appeared, he retracted the weapon, sliding it back into his sheath with an exhale through his teeth.

"You're looking for your boy, aren't you?" He asked, brushing invisible dust from his suit with both hands, taking a second or two before he lifted his gaze to interlock with Bruce's again. It was clear then, just by that look, that he wasn't here in the name of a fight and that was extremely rare.

"Nightwing?"

With a small dip of his head, Bruce hummed a low yes.

"Him and Red Hood.... can I ask what you're doing here?"

"The same as you, I imagine. Rose went missing here a month ago, I need to find her."  _Rose_ , Slade's daughter. The daughter who it was no secret the borderline sociopathic mercenary would slay armies for. He loved her more than anything, which made the fact that she was most likely dead very unfortunate, indeed. But just like Slade left it unsaid that rumour had it Dick was murdered, Bruce didn't bring up his daughter's likely fate either.

Red Hood killed capes like he had a personal vendetta to carry out. He better pray to whatever god he worshipped that he wasn't the one to pull the trigger on Rose. Slade had some truly horrific and creative ways to carry out his own vendettas, take it from someone who'd witnessed the crime scenes.

"We're both here for the same reason, Slade. Our  _kids_. We'll have a better shot of finding them if-"

"-If we don't work against each other." Slade finished for him, relieving Bruce by doing it as it meant he was thinking the exact thing.

"I don't like to admit it, but I can't take on Hood and his goons alone - and neither can you. Help me, Bats, and I'll help you. Our bad blood isn't more important than my girl."

Bruce agreed with yet another nod. He didn't need to wonder if he could trust that statement of Slade's, he was in the same mindset right now, where he would do anything, literally any fucking thing, if it meant saving his eldest in time. No matter who he had to put an ounce of his trust into.

"I need any allies I can get, I don't know the full capabilities of Hood's militia."

"Him taking the city overnight should give you a pretty fair idea." Slade dully interjected and he definitely wasn't incorrect there. Hood had every gang in Gotham as well as a good amount of its population waiting for his signal to attack. He had thousands of men to his name.

"Indeed. And are you aware your son is running errands for Red Hood?" With the question, Bruce jerked a stuck-out thumb over his shoulder to the window.

"Which son? I'm assuming you don't mean Joseph, he's too sensible for that." While he asked that, Slade moved over to the window to covertly steal a lingering look at the youngster clad in a grey rip off of his father's suit, dishing out inaudible orders to the men following him.

Bruce hadn't ever heard Slade sigh like that, like a parent who hit the pinnacle of human disappointment.

" _Dammit_ , Grant..." The mercenary muttered under his breath, glaring in his son's direction for the few moments that Grant remained in his sight. The teen split up from his men, running off somewhere down a street with another gunman at his side.

"As soon as I can get him alone, I'll talk to him. He'll have insight to offer."

"Will he talk to  _you_?" Bruce sceptically inquired. If he remembered correctly, Slade and his eldest weren't in good terms.

"He will." There was a certain amount of darkness to his conviction, Bruce could almost hear what he was thinking; did Grant have anything to do with what happened to Rose? He honestly couldn't say he foresaw what Slade would do if that was the case. No question, he would murder the man or woman who harmed her, but were his other children immune to that?

Surely even Slade Wilson drew the line there.... didn't he?

Bruce had a feeling he was about to find out and he wasn't sure he wanted to.

With no forewarning at all, Slade brushed briskly by him on his way to the door.

"Let's follow my boy. See what he knows when we can get him alone."

* * *

 

It was either early morning or late night and Jason couldn't sleep. What else was new? He was going on day eight of no rest, he'd survive like he always did. It gave him time to think, anyway. Right now, it was taking up a lot of his attention span trying to figure out how he was going to counter this Bat vigilante.

Once more, patrol brought up a shit load of nothing last search. It was beginning to get more and more aggravating.

A scowl formed on his face, his brows knit while he worked his hand through Grant's hair in long slow strokes, rubbing the sleek strands between his fingers when he reached the ends. Grant, at least, could sleep, his powers ate up his energy reserves like nobody's business and he was often ready to collapse when the hours grew late.

He slept on his back, always had, ever since their sleepovers in rickety pillow forts set up in the Wilson household. Jason remembered how Grant's siblings would try to join them, Joey with his stupid make belief monsters under the bed.... and little Rose, just  _sixteen_  when she died. Tragic. So very tragic.

Did she think her big brother was going to save her life?

Did she think daddy would show up in the nick of time?

Jason's death was sudden, he didn't know what he was thinking before bang, lights out, but Rose  _knew_  she was going to die. He made sure of it. What had been her last thoughts?

His fingers slowed in amidst tangles of dishevelled tresses when they came to the slight rise of a scar taking up an inch of space on Grant's temple, so close to his hairline that it took squinting to see. Carefully,  thoughtfully, Jason began tracing it with his index. He remembered how Grant got this clear as day.

They were both twelve, playing outside in the Wilsons' spacious garden - building a tree house - when all of a sudden, Adeline came out of nowhere and started yelling about mud tracked into the house. The situation escalated, she picked up a garden ornament, a gnome or a glass frog or something, and  _threw_  it at her son.

It shattered when it hit Grant in the face, Jason would never forget that noise of porcelain smashing over bone and muscle. Grant collapsed, there was blood, it took a whole ten minutes before he was able to even sit up and that was the first time Jason threatened to kill someone.

He got between his then friend and Adeline and swore he would kill the bitch. Those days were long since lived.

The following morning at school, Grant was milky pale, throwing up, and staggering, bumping into things and losing his balance more than once. They were both too young to know what a concussion looked like but it did come to light Joey tracked the mud into the house when he was playing outside.

Nothing happened to him at his mother's hand. She wasn't furious at him. Perks of being the golden boy.

Did Slade ever find out, Jason wondered? Probably not. He'd only seen the guy twice, he was always off gallivanting on the far reaches of the world... and sometimes off it.

Jason had somehow moved on from planning a trap for the current bane of his existence to ruminating on childhood. What a normal transition in his thought process. 

One arm folded over his bare abdomen, he sat partially upright with his back leaning heavily on the headboard, staring into darkness while he ran his hand through Grant's hair like he was a villainous cartoon mastermind petting his lap dog. Only one of those was true. 

Instead of the transmitter, would an electric collar be too much? Wasn't that going a little bit too far? It would sure as hell be degrading and then again, when did he start caring?

Jason's fingers moved from caressing Grant's hair to sliding down smooth skin and the dip of his jaw to his neck, curling around it lightly.  Not for the first time, Jason fantasised over squeezing every drop of life out of him. He didn't know exactly what part of him compelled the urge that wanted everyone dead, but another reminded him Deathstroke's son was only useful alive.

Jason needed the stubborn, infuriating creature for a whole lot more than a stress ball,  a soldier and someone to sleep with on the occasion. Probably more than Grant could even imagine.

The thought of it made him grow restless, too restless to mope in bed when he wasn't even tired.

Quiet as a whisper, Jason slid out from beneath the covers, gathering his crumpled up jeans off the floor because hey, pants are a good idea. His shirt lay in a discarded pile beside it, a simple white tank top that went discreetly beneath his suit, and he put that on too.

Being dressed was nice.

Before he left the room, Jason planted a possessive kiss onto Grant's throat, sensing he was awake, just pretending to sleep, all by the minor change in the tone of his breathing. It was very rarely that the Wilson boy slept for long while in Jason's company and that went both ways, there was just no trust left between them. He supposed it was sad or something, they were best friends once upon a time. They'd killed for one another, stayed over when parents got too violent, walked to school every morning, spent all their free time playing together, all sentimental bullshit that never meant a thing.

Jason hacked, burned, destroyed, blew up and nuked that bridge.

And he didn't have a trace of regret.

Biding his time, Grant opened his eyes, husky blue irises luminescent against the thick darkness, and their gazes interlocked in silence, both laden with a multitude of nameless feelings.  _Fuck_ , his eyes were pretty. So, so fucking pretty and the way his lashes were black enough for it to look like pencilled liner.... The contrast against his sable hair, it was fucking gorgeous.

This time around, Jason took him by the chin and kissed him hard on the mouth, Grant accepted it as he always did, and for just a moment, the teen wondered what it would be like if Ravager was there willingly.

_What if he wanted this...?_

Jason wasn't sure what the notoriously heterosexual Wilson boy's views on what they did were, but he also couldn't care less.

No one got to choose. Life was fucked up like that. Wasn't his fault.

"I have a new mission for you tomorrow." Jason murmured under his breath when he gave them half an inch of space, their breathing intermingling into one steady flow of life.

"Uh-huh." Grant gave a small bob of his head with the quiet noise of understanding.

" _And_ ," He went on, one hand slowly descending down Grant's chest to the taut muscle of his abdomen. His fingers lingered over a fresh splash of bruises somehow acquired. For just a heartbeat, he allowed himself to concentrate on the gentle rise and fall of controlled breathing.

".... If you fail, I'll fucking nail you to my wall for three days with your guts hangin' out.  _Again_."

Pulling his lips into a line, Grant's body ankylosed with the memory but he gave another nod and low,

"Uh-huh."

He didn't take that threat lightly. Good. It wasn't idle.

"Sleep now." Jason whispered, smoothing down unruly strands of hair while he did. He  _loved_  unsettling Grant. Something about a big powerful  _meta_  being uncomfortable around him was just intoxicating. 

God, he was fucked up.

He loved it.

"I don't want you to be weak and tired."

"Copy that, boss." Came the near inaudible response. Grant wasn't looking him in the eye, his gaze was downcast, studying the hand resting on him. Just to draw out his discomfort, Jason kept it there longer than he had to before finally stepping back. 

Without another word, the teenage warlord swept out of the room.

He hadn't remodelled Black Mask's building much after taking over, he liked the expensive posh furnishing and foreboding air that clung to every inch of this place. It was different to how it used to be. When Roman called the shots here, everyone was on their toes in fear of what he  _might_  do. People were terrified of what Jason was  _going_  to do. The tower was distinctly Red Hood's, his and his alone. 

He wasn't going to stay here long, however, not with how a primal urge in him demanded to branch out and take more than he already had. Bludhaven was a temptress he'd resisted for as long as he had it in him to, he just needed a few more pieces to fall into place and then she was ripe for the taking. 

After all, didn't he make the detective a promise?

In his head, Jason could see how it was all going to play out right down to the minor details of how the weather would look on the day. He smiled to himself, imagining it, while he stepped into the elevator and waited for the doors to close before he selected where he was going. 

Joker taught him several tricks of the trade that he could put to use, including the art of deceptive fingerprints, as he called them. It was no accident or coincidence that each of Jason's fingerpads had scarred over cuts or burns disfiguring the distinct lines that should identify him, he put those scars there himself, all different in one tiny variation or another. It was so if anyone wanted to steal his prints and access his secrets, they'd have to go through nine options and by then, he'd have found them already.  

With that in mind, Jason pressed his index with a burn mark onto the recognition pad beneath the floor selection, watching the machine scan him in seconds then grant him access to the small hidden panel, disguised as just fifteen centimetres of the wall. It was yet another recognition device, a retinal scanner this time. 

Jason popped the green contact lens out of his right eye, revealing only to himself the marble-like brown he hid beneath it. Another trick the Clown Prince of Crime passed down to him, contact lenses were enough to fool a nation. His left eye didn't open this locking system, that was a perk only the other very different one could do, and it didn't take a heartbeat until the elevator was whirring in its descent to the lowest floor. It was a level no one but he and a handful of men who feared him enough to be trusted could access.

The doors pinged when they opened, Jason walked out into the gloomy laboratory lit up mainly by computer monitors and machines he didn't know the uses of. It would fit to say they were on a graveyard shift here, taking that there were only four men at work, but this was ordinary. He didn't need more than them to carry out his projects, he had scarcely enough trust for them. He trusted they feared him, that is. 

The lab coats that noticed him lurking so silently near adopted pale expressions of dread, some gulping visibly.

"I'm just here to check on progress." Jason told them since, as much as he enjoyed grown men trembling before him, he didn't have the patience to deal with stammering and stuttering and nervous glances right now. He'd still get them, of course.

"Yes, uhm, well, boss," Javi stepped forth from the worried cluster of his coworkers, gripping a clipboard tight enough to keep his hands from trembling. While he tried to get himself together, from the corner of his vision, Jason studied the cylindrical tank standing upright in the centre of the room, bubbling with green liquid keeping the thing inside of it floating. As it turns out, Roman had a Superman clone just stowed away down here, waiting for the right crime lord to come along and weaponize it. 

"We're unsure if the Bizarro clone is stable enough to be woken just yet, Lex Luthor had his research on it destroyed but we're gathering intel-"

"The girl. What about the  _girl_?" Jason cut him off, preferring to go in the order of things that actually interested him. He had a lot more money and plans riding on this other project cooking up. 

"The process is coming along smoothly." Javi responded, clearly relieved with the change the topic took.

"We expect definitive results within days....  _but_ , we do need another sample of your blood, sir. The traces of Lazarus need to come in a bigger supply to be 100% effective."

Exhaling, Jason was already rolling his sleeve up, track marks no longer hidden. These damn vampires would bleed him dry and they better pray it was worth it. If everything went accordingly, it would be far more than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Jason, you upset the super dads? You done fucked up, boy.


	2. Judge, Jury, and.....

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Thanks a lot, Jay!" She hugged him tight again. "You're the best." 
> 
> "Eh, I try." He shrugged and over her shoulder, stared at the white and pink wall while she clung to him. There was nothing there, nothing at all. He was just crazy, as so many had accurately put it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your bitch has been watching American Horror Story again, it's gonna get fucked up from here on out.

_His throat burned with the strain of forcing his breathing to remain controlled and unsuspicious. His hand trembled long before the weight of the gun filled his palm, shaking so badly his aim was that of a drunk man's but her face was so close he didn't need accuracy to hit his mark. He wasn't going to do this, he knew that already, he just had to figure out fast how to avoid it._

_On her knees on the execution grounds with her hands tied, she hid her fear well but he could see tinges of it making it past the clear colour of her eyes. Tiny tremors caused her limbs to quiver and if the situation had been different, she would have lied and said she was just cold. Just cold. Just fucking cold. She looked up at him, waiting for the clap of lead shooting from the gun's muzzle._

_He wasn't doing this. He wouldn't, no matter what that psychopath did to him as a result. He could fucking skin him alive or break every bone he hadn't yet, he wasn't doing this._

_He wanted her to know that. He wished he could tell his little sister that she was safe with him and he would protect her from anything, always. That's what he used to say, when she would come crying to him at night because there was a monster in her closet or under her bed... or their parents' arguing scared her. They didn't have anyone but each other, duality wouldn't tear them apart... right? Nothing could turn them on one another?_

_Then how did they get here?_

_How was he going to avoid this? How would he save her? They weren't here alone, men who were willing to do this if he didn't stood at the ready in a claustrophobic circle surrounding. The demon with the red hood and his dead friend's skin stretched across its bones was growing impatient for the moment -_

_No. He would never do what was demanded of him._

_But then before he could repeat that pledge to himself again, white lightning burst through him, searing the insides of his veins and jerking his muscles without his control. Convulsing, his hands forcibly flew shut, trigger finger closing._

_Bang._

* * *

 

Grant choked on the nightmare when he bolted awake as if the electricity went off again. He was shaking, ribs aching from the rapid expanding of his constricting lungs, vision blurring for moments that he mistook for dizziness but no, they were tears he blinked back before he had to face the shame of having them. The room swam, furniture blurred in an aberration and spun until it returned to the solid mass it always was.

It took him longer to calm his racing heartbeat than to realise nothing was moving and everything around him stood on firm ground. His panting gradually began evening out.

Even so, the nightmare - no,  _memory_ , left the taste of blood on his tongue.

Grant didn't want to think about it. It messed with his head and his ability to function the way Jason demanded him to. He couldn't be caught up in his own head while there was a Bat who needed capturing.

He didn't waste time on making sure he wouldn't pass out from hunger later, just got quickly dressed, strapped on his armour, holstered and sheathed his weapons, covered his dishevelled expression with his mask, and ventured out into Gotham before that demented brat had a chance to catch him in a slew of orders. He didn't want to hear who he had to kill today.

It happened when he broke away from his blood ties and took on a name of his own, Ravager, that he accepted this lifestyle he chose meant there would be death. He was a mercenary, a hired gun, a soldier of fortune, he killed to earn his keep and that was fine. What  _wasn't_  fine, was when it transitioned from a job to what it was now. Jason gives him an order, he hurries along to complete like a dog afraid of getting a zap from the collar around its neck.

At this point, he was obeying commands just to keep his pain receptors from going off. It was pathetic.

Warily, he watched Duela scratching at her neck as if it was fleas she was trying to get rid of. That was a nicer thought than reality.

"You'll set it off." Grant told her, voice flat and dead after too many nights of losing sleep. Rarely, he wore his mask when he preferred to feel the wind of his face.... lately, he'd been needing to hide the dark circles and pale skin just to be able to pass his own reflection.

"I just wants the damn thingy out, Rav." Duela protested, fingernails leaving red lines across the ridge of her spine. Her teeth were set, viciously clawing at herself just to be freed from the control chip planted in her by the person they were both fucking stupid enough to put their trust in. Grant had made that mistake because he'd known Jason his whole life, Duela went along because she trusted he knew what he was doing with Red Hood. Yeah, he was guilty over that too.

Sheep following sheep to the wolf wearing an intricate disguise. He should earn an award for fucking up this phenomenally.

"Let's go, Duela." He moved past her, pulling her along by her arm to distract her from her current task. She'd just hurt herself. The Joker's Daughter was about the last living thing left alive who he could confide in to some degree and after dragging her into this shit storm, he felt the need to keep her safe as best as he could. She was hardly older than Rose.

A group of five gunmen joined Grant and Duela on their search for the Bat, but Deathstroke's son felt a fit of anxiety coming on by being surrounded by them. He took off in a direction of his own while he left Duela in charge of the squadron, whether that be just a terrible idea or an apocalyptic one.

It was like air wasn't getting through the respiratory filters of his mask. He was nauseous, sick to his stomach and he didn't know why.

He just wanted it to stop.

With shaking hands, Grant gripped his helmet and he couldn't yank it off fast enough. He threw the thing across the ground violently, scratching the metal of the faceplate against the rough asphalt. It clattered. He hardly heard it. His head hurt too much like his temples were caving in. He was thinking about Rose again. About how his was the last face she saw. Should he have worn his mask and pretended he wasn't her brother? Or would that have made it worse?

Jesus fuck, all the shit Jason caused could give an aspirin a headache.

And when he didn't think he couldn't feel any worse, someone strong - stronger than him by a longshot - grabbed him from behind.

As Ravager, as Grant Wilson, instinct demanded him to resist. He bucked up against the solid wall of muscle that was his captor, struggled but his arms were pinned out of his use.

" _Dammit_ , boy, don't fight me." That voice. Grant knew that voice, recognising it with a pang of dread he couldn't ignore, good thing he hardly focused on it with how hard he was thrown into the brick alley wall. A hollow thud reverberated through the space in his chest, he involuntarily gasped, Grant tasted blood, all things he wasn't surprised dad would give him.

His teeth cut into his lip, he glared bloody murder at the bigger man now pushing him into the wall, so easily it's as if he didn't struggle at all.

"I don't want to hurt you, Grant." Slade grit, fingers tightening around his son's wrists, his arms splayed out, useless to him. He hadn't seen his eldest in longer than he liked to admit but he could still tell the difference in his features. He was paler, thinner, fresh bruises marred his jaw. He looked sick before Slade got here, unwell, it immediately arose his protective instincts.

But the mission came first.

Slade spun him around, pushed him deeper into the wall with his arms bent behind his back. One hand held Grant's wrist, the other clamped around his neck. Wayne was just behind, Slade could feel him watching how he manhandled his son. 

You couldn't think like that in this situation, this was Hood's second-in-command.

"Why are you working for Hood?" Slade demanded, fingers tightening until they dug into flesh. He heard Grant hiss through his teeth and ignored it.

"Get the fuck off me,  _Slade_." He snapped back, voice muffled by his cheek compressed against the brickwork. Slade adjusted his hold to cup the back of his head none too lightly.

"Not until you  _talk_. Where is your sister?"

The mercenary didn't like the way that question made his kid freeze up and adopt an expression that wouldn't sit well. Finally, Grant met his line of sight and he did it as if he was apologising for something terrible.

"... What have you done, boy?" He demanded, stepping back, freeing Grant from his clutches and although it would have been easy then, Grant didn't run away from him as he so often had in the past. He straightened and he didn't go for the various weapons strapped to his being. Whatever pressed on his heart, it was bad. Very bad.

A minute lasted every bit of sixty seconds before Grant could get the strength into his tongue enough to move.

"He.. he made me do it to her, dad." He all but whimpered, whisper soft, eyes unable to hold the weight of emotion and his sights sank to the floor. That ninety percent of his brain he could use at once filled in the blanks for Slade immediately. The regret he saw, the fear, the misery brought on by both.... no. 

At once, Slade's hand lurched around his son's throat, he choked when it closed tightly to crush his trachea, he was hoisted off the ground. Grant kicked at his father but only as a reflex, not an attempt to escape, he hung there like every part of him had earned it.

"What did you do to her? To  _Rose_?" Slade's teeth were chipping, they were clenched so mercilessly, jaw beginning to ache at the hinge and he squeezed harder until he had to be bruising Grant through the kevlar collar of his suit. 

_Red Hood's second-in-command, not your son. Not right now._

"D - dad, h - he m - made me-" 

"Slade, let him go!" Bruce stepped in between far later than he should have but he made up for the lag, breaking the mercenary's iron hold with a good solid blow to the joint of his elbow, reflexively making the outstretched limb buck in on itself. It was enough to make the father stop strangling his son.

Slade cursed, Grant barely caught himself as he was dropped, coughing raggedly with tears pricking his eyes. Wisely, he backed several steps away but didn't go the full mile and take out his gun. 

It was damn stupid to get between them so where did Bruce end up finding himself? Exactly there. 

"Wilson, stoppit, he's your  _son_." He growled while the only other noises were Grant's evening-out coughs and Slade breathing heavily in the attempt to restrain himself. A film of darkness had come over the clear blue colour of his eye, the urge to avenge his daughter blinding him to the bigger picture. 

"He killed his own  _sister_!" Vicious, Slade snapped, gesturing angrily to Grant behind Bruce, and the wounded undertow was obvious. It wasn't a question why he responded so violently, it was his little girl, the only daughter he had, and Bruce understood that better than he thought but he wasn't helping.

"Didn't you hear what he said, Slade? Red Hood forced his hand."

" _No one_  can make that brat do anything, trust me." 

Bruce huffed when he meant to sigh, turning on his heel to face Grant, who was holding his hand over the fresh ring of bruises purpling his throat, processing his father's actions like there was a blockage somewhere in his head that slowed the transaction.  He winced when he swallowed, wetting his chapped lips with a nervous swipe of his tongue.

"Grant, can you explain to us what happened with Hood and Rose?" Bruce had to ask since Slade sure as hell wouldn't, he couldn't think rationally with a rare show of emotion holding his reins and swinging them wildly.

"Hood, he - he put a-" Hand still shaking, the teen made to gesture to what looked like it was going to be his neck, only he was cut short by a sudden jerk that burst through his whole system. Grant dropped like he was electrocuted, not catching himself, hitting the ground with a dull crack that should have snapped his father back to reality. It didn't. 

Bruce shoved Slade back when god knows what he was about to do but he didn't have time to waste on a lunatic mercenary, he hurried over to the fallen Wilson boy. He was convulsing of something else's volition, unseen currents of electricity tearing through him, shaking him as if an omnipotent force picked him up to play with too roughly.

Then as quickly as it came, it passed and Grant gasped for air deprived from him, launching into a fit of coughing all over again. He wasn't breathing right but immediately stumbled to pick himself up, he staggered back rapidly when Bruce neared, Slade just behind.

"Grant, what's wrong?" Bruce asked, moving closer with his hands up as a sign that he didn't want to fight. God knows beating Slade Wilson's son in a fight wouldn't be the easiest thing he'd done.

"I gotta get back. Hood wants me." Grabbing his fallen helmet, Grant tried fast to get by them, only to have his arm grabbed by his father and he was wrenched right back.

"You aren't going anywhere until you answer to what you've done."

"Dad, please, I-" His jaws clamped shut on the tip of his tongue, body going up like a livewire, the first shock that jolted him coming with others in quick succession. Again he collapsed, the only difference being that this time, Slade caught him.

"What's wrong with him, Wayne?" He demanded while he held onto his son, all traces of his accusatory rage quickly vanished. Was he finally beginning to see that something was amiss here? 

"I don't know. Lay him down." Bruce grunted the order while he came over quick, witnessing his command be obeyed strikingly fast, Slade lowered him onto the floor and while the fit had passed again, he was whimpering, every nerve ending alive with pain. The insides of his veins were burned by the unseen electric.

"What's wrong, boy? What did Hood do to you?" Slade asked, undeniably somewhat anxious, holding Grant's face in both hands. 

"He - he put a - a," he couldn't talk right, Bruce suspected his vocal cords were somehow fried too, and the teen shakily managed to gesture to his neck again.

There was something there. Given what he saw, Bruce's mind immediately went to some sort of neural transmitter. An electricity transmitter, perhaps?

"Slade, Hood must've grafted an obedience device to his spine." Bruce briefly and briskly explained, getting down on his knees, already going through his utility belt for an EMP. He wasn't sure it would work (wouldn't Grant have done it if it did?) but it was worth a shot.

"Dad,  _please_  let me go. The third shock's gonna f - fucking kill me." Grant attempted to push his father's hands off him, to free himself, but Slade shoved him against the asphalt.

"Stay down, lad, or I'll break your neck." Slade hissed.

"Please do cause it might get the fucking transmitter out-"  _Crack_. Bruce's stomach flipped with the splintering of bone, Slade gripped Grant's head and bent it back until his spine stabbed sharply through the suddenly bloody and torn mess of his throat. A few quick ragged wet breaths gurgled past the slew of blood and that was all. Near instantaneous death.

Not for the first time in his life, Bruce was horrified with Slade.

"What the hell are you doing?!" He demanded while the mercenary showed no sign of emotion, not even repulsion while he stuck his fingers into his son's gaping throat, redness and ripped sinews squidging noisily. 

"Getting it out." He flatly replied like it was no big deal, at last picking out a tiny device lodged between the vertebrae.  It was covered completely in blood but despite it, it was clearly a foreign object.

Extending his hand, Slade dropped the transmitter into Bruce's palm without another word, totally ignoring his shocked expression, and pulled Grant off the ground, into his arms. He braced his broken neck and straightened it out to ensure the bone would regrow the way God intended it. The wound, severe though it was, was already showing signs of healing. The wonder of their family's metagenetics.

"So, Hood used that thing to force my son to kill his sister?" Slade spoke quietly, to himself mostly, watching Grant's slack features as he worked a hand back and forth through his hair, sorting out the clotting clumps of blood. Bruce could only imagine what was going on in his head.

"It appears so." He was equally silent, examining the transmitter, rolling it over in his palm. It was high-grade tech, exactly the kind of thing he expected from an adversary as formidable as the Red Hood. How many of his seeming loyalists were only at his side because of such things?

That could be extremely useful in overthrowing him.

"Slade," Bruce looked at him, he subsequently turned his attention from Grant.

"D'you think your boy will do some work for us?"

"I don't think he's Hood's second because he wants to be. Transmitter proves it."

"It  _proves_  Hood doesn't trust him. We need Hood to trust him or we won't get him with his guard down. He's smart, we won't get a clear shot of him as long as he's on high alert."

Slade's jaws parted to respond, to  _agree_ , Bruce hoped, but the groan of coming around from Grant distracted him. The kid was drowsy, that was an understatement, blinking heavily, the horrendous wound acquired at his father's hand turning to pink lines of scars that would soon be gone too. 

"Let's wait a moment before we discuss it further, Wayne." The merc said dismissively as he propped his son up against his shoulder, arm behind his back to brace him and Bruce saw it in the kid's dreary eyes, that he did not want to be there. Like that. Yet he lacked the present strength to break away. 

It made Bruce unwittingly think back on what his terms with his own eldest was in those last few years. No talk, no contact, no communication, and they hadn't seen each other in even longer than that. 

Seeing this father/son relationship unfold made him regret everything more than he already did.

After a moment of allowing the teenager to catch his breath and then push his parent away, they learned a great deal from him about the enigmatic man in red whom he took his orders from. 

"You remember that kid Jason I used to play with, Slade?" Grant asked with his voice under notable strain from the injury, glancing at Slade but the name bore no recognition. Grant rolled his eyes with a huff.

"Course not, 'cause you were never home - anyway, he's that kid Joker fostered - his son - and he's fifty times as mad as his clown daddy, fifty times as mean, and a hundred more unpredictable. He's hellbent on taking everyone down, people who've never done anything to him." 

"Should've known you'd buddy it up with a psychopath." Slade muttered with an eye roll of his own. So they were back to normal terms now? That lasted long.

As they spoke passive-aggressively among themselves, Bruce chewed on his lip. Joker's son?  _Jason_? It couldn't be... a sinking sense of dread came upon him.

* * *

 

_The Bat pursued the deranged clown through Gotham while he cackled all the way, always ten strides ahead, darting in and out of view whenever he so pleased, just enough to keep his enemy interested in the chase but not run the risk of capture. He was smart like that, smarter than the GCPD ever credited their resident terrorist for._

_But Bruce had been dealing with the Joker and his antics for longer than he remembered to an exact number of years, his tricks were nothing new, nor was the vanishing act he pulled when finally cornered, at the unlikely location of an old toy store, abandoned years since. Bruce remembered this place in its prime, he was friends of sorts with the owner, he used to buy Dick birthday presents here - when they were in speaking terms, that is. Boy, was that a long time ago._

_The location, grand and once full of merriment, had fallen into severe disrepair, windows dark and empty, shelves holding rows of dusty broken toys destined to never be played with. After the owner died, no relatives came forth to collect the property and it was forgotten. Only ghosts of times past roamed these aisles now._

_Broken glass and dead dry twigs crunched underfoot when Bruce walked silently through the empty spaces, eyes peeled for any flicker of movement in the dark. Joker was hiding from him, the tail end of a faint giggle playing on the still air somewhere in the distance. He wasn't alone here, he could feel it._

_Bruce stepped over the exact spot the owner put a gun into his mouth and the bullet was yet lodged in the wall, in the centre of the blood splatter that never came out due to lack of effort._

_To his left, behind the costume rack, he caught half a stray breath, almost too low to hear but he let it guide him, immediately thrusting his arm through the veil of garments, fingers finding warm solid organic mass and yanking it out. He knew even before it stumbled out into his view, that the body was far too small to be Joker, much too light to belong to a grown man._

_A child - early teens barely - stared terrified up at him with strange duo-hued eyes, trying to pull and get away but Bruce held his forearm, enveloped in his hand. The little creature possessed such menial strength that his efforts went unexperienced._

_Questions raced and at once, Bruce knew this was not an ordinary child. White on black hair hung an unruly mess partly obscuring him but left a bullet scar visible on his forehead, beneath his wide scared eyes were long red lines - scratch marks - reminiscent of clawing at his own face.  His bottom lip was scarred from biting through it so many a time, a collar of bruises new and old marring his throat._

_He kept tugging to free his arm but flinched violently when Bruce so much as moved. He was afraid, that was obvious. Shaking. Badly. As if he had never felt the grace of sunlight warm on his skin._

_"Who are you, boy?" He asked, heat vision not picking up a trace of Joker's presence among the shelves. They were alone. Where did the clown go? Who was this child?  It didn't appear as if he was going to speak, in all honesty, it was debatable whether he knew how. His lips were trembling with silent words, pleas he couldn't get audio behind._

_It was only then that Bruce realised his hand around the child's arm was the only thing holding him upright and that there were tears slipping down his cheeks, salt stinging in the cuts he'd given himself._

_Bruce had never seen a more damaged creature in his life. Just by the minute of looking at him, that was a fact._

_Without another thought, the Bat scooped the child up into his hold and to his surprise, the small thing all but slumped into him. He was incredibly weak, Bruce could feel his bones through his clothes, a worn out and faded, torn, uniform of sorts. It looked intended for school._

_He wrapped the child into the safety of the folds of his cape and glanced at him, he was whimpering silently, eyes starry with tears and staring at something not there._

_There was a strip of leather around his throat, a collar, locked, and on the dangling silver tag it read 'Jason'._

* * *

 

"Will you help us, boy? Help us destroy the man who killed your sister? He is going to  _suffer_." Slade growled when raising the question and statement, Bruce drifted slowly out of his troubled thoughts and back into the moment. Slade and his son were talking again.

"Destroy him? Dad, I wanna fucking  _murder_  him." Grant's voice shivered with cold rage, with intent, with a silent pledge. He was going to do everything to make sure Jason's life ended at the point of his sword, that was so sure he didn't need to say it.

After what Red H -  _Jason_  had done to him and his family, Bruce didn't blame him for it. It displayed a rare streak of that Wilson honour.

"Then we need you to get the lunatic's trust, Grant. Can you do that?"

"I won't like it but... I can try. I wanna kill that fucking bitch."

* * *

 

A rare display, Jason pushed a warm smile over the familiarly demented one that so often forced itself onto his features. He lowered himself onto his knees and extended his hand toward the girl.  She was nine, a sweet redheaded little thing, small for her age. Sasha was what she was called. He initially met her when in Pyg's captivity, she was something of an assistant of the unhinged, sadistic professor's, but that didn't keep her safe from the brunt of his experiments.

It was no secret that Pyg had his army of dolotrons, brainwashed  victims cut up until they were identical meaty mannequins, their minds too poisoned to know anything but to carry out his will. He tried to do the same to Sasha, except he failed. Not entirely, however, he did leave her face permanently and badly disfigured. Her hairline was taken back several inches from where it would naturally grow, making her forehead look big and round. Her skin was thick and leathery, scarred to the point where it barely allowed enough range of movement for her to speak and breathe, or even blink. Bits of her lips were gone, exposing her teeth, part of her nose was cut off, eyes surrounded by a permanent blackness that made them look sunken deeper in than they were. 

But she had  _bright_   beautiful eyes, lovely hazel, and an even brighter smile when she ran to embrace him. 

Laughing, Jason hugged her back tighter, enveloping her small body with his own, burying his face in her wiry dry spikes of hair. After Grant made the biggest mistake of his life and released Jason from Pyg, he'd searched the laboratory for Sasha, the little girl he'd formed a sort of kinship with, but she was nowhere. Jason had been afraid Pyg did away with her but lo, she'd somehow escaped him, only to be injured by a man with a machete during Catharsis. As luck would have it, Jason chanced upon them both, right as the madman was about to cut her down, and he let himself play judge, jury, and executioner. 

But Sasha was hurt, a deep cut in her belly pumping out blood. Jason  _gladly_  gave her his. He brought her back here, to his doctors and scientists, and had them perform the transfusion. There was Lazarus in his veins, it brought him back once and he knew it could help her too. It took almost more than he had to give but it worked, she was better. It was like the wound was never there. It was worth it. 

"The doctors said your blood made me better." Starry-eyed, Sasha smiled as best as the taut skin stretched across her features allowed her and she pulled back ever so slightly, remaining in his arms.

"Yeah. You were sick but I had medicine in my blood. It fixed  you." Jason explained, beaming on the outside while his innards squirmed in discomfort. Was that... was that affection he felt beating its wings in his chest? God, he hoped not. It was the most uncomfortable feeling in the world. But for her, he could push it aside.

"Thanks, Jay." As a further show of her gratitude, Sasha pecked him on the cheek before she stepped back and gave a little twirl to show off the crimson sundress he got her. Sasha always wanted to be a princess, Jason was doing what he could to make that happen for her. She deserved that much. People had fucked her over as many times as they had him, he had to protect her since no one else in the world would. 

"You like my dress?" She asked and Jason nodded intently, smiling when from the folds of his jacket, he produced an elegant glass tiara and plopped it onto her head. She gasped when she felt it, fingers gliding over its smooth surface in awe. 

Sasha's bedroom was in the lab but on the inside, you would never know that it was filled with books and toys and a princess style four post bed, all in pink, of course.  There were no mirrors in here, though, Jason couldn't bear the idea of her being afraid of her own reflection just yet. Leave that for the adults. 

She was safe down here until Jason made sure it was safe on the surface levels as well. But for now, Sasha was comfortable and happy here, that was enough.

"Thanks a lot, Jay!" She hugged him tight again. "You're the best." 

"Eh, I try." He shrugged and over her shoulder, stared at the white and pink wall while she clung to him. There was nothing there, nothing at all.  He was just crazy, as so many had accurately put it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we have - conflict and confusion.


	3. To Rob, To Ravage, To Murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pain stinging through his cheek, Jason chuckled on a low breath.
> 
> "Your mommy issues are so damn hot."

_"Alfred, I don't know what's wrong with him." Bruce exhaled, letting his cowl fall around his shoulders and it felt heavier than ever. The old man stood beside him and both of them watched the young child he brought in. Jason, if that was his name, he had pulled himself into the furthest corner of Wayne Manor's living room, drawn into a ball and rocking slowly back, forth, and back again. An unending cascade of tears flowed down his cheeks from his wide fearful eyes. There was nothing here to be afraid of but he wasn't responding to assurances of it. It's like he didn't see or hear anything happening around him._

_"Sir, might I once again suggest you take the child to a hospital?" Alfred commented and it's not like Bruce hadn't thought of that._

_"I looked him over, he isn't hurt. I'm worried anyone else getting involved could end badly."_

_"How so, Master Wayne?" Eyebrow raise. Bruce could practically hear the eyebrow raise._

_"There's... something really wrong with Jason, Alfred. I can't explain it, but I feel it. Why was he there with Joker? Why isn't he responsive to his surroundings?"_

_"Trauma, perhaps, sir? Jason appears to be in a state of severe shock."_

_Bruce gave a low thoughtful hum, arms folded, looking from the butler to Jason again. He came alert when the boy was digging his fingernails into his ashen face again, reopening the old cuts._

_"Hey, stop that." Bruce moved fast to take his far smaller hands into his own, holding them away, at a distance where they couldn't harm him. Jason's tremors transferred into him but he refused to let them shake him. The kid was so cold, freezing to his very core, and it seemed that no matter how high the temperature was cranked, it didn't get his circulation going._

_They took that cruel animalistic collar off, it came with metal studs on the inside, each one pressing an indentation into Jason's flesh. Whoever put it on him, Bruce didn't want to imagine why. It was something you could expect in some sort of sexual play. It was horrifying, Jason couldn't be older than fourteen. Was Joker responsible for that? Couldn't be. It wasn't exactly his M.O._

_But then what was his involvement with this child...?_

_Shuddering, Jason pulled his hands out of Bruce's and pushed his face into his knees with a quiet tender whimper. His hair fell over his eyes, the parts his knees didn't already hide, and he shivered in that miserable ball, arms wrapped bruisingly around himself._

_Bruce bit the inside of his cheek, a nervous habit he thought he'd grown out of. But he didn't know what to do. Except maybe...? He himself could be intimidating, especially to children, especially when they'd seen him as Batman, but perhaps another could get a few words out of Jason. They needed something to work with._

_"Alfred, would you watch him a moment?" Bruce requested, rising, heading away before he received a reply but he knew it would be a yes. Silent as a whisper, Alfred ghosted over to kneel by Jason and placed a comforting hand on his back._

_The Bat went no further than the hallway, dialling a sequence of numbers into his phone and listening to it ring for seconds. He'd changed his phone, it should pick up if the caller came up unknown._

_And he was right._

_" 'Yello?"_

_Bruce stalled. He hadn't heard Dick's voice without the weight of rage in so long it was transfixing. He spent a bit too much time on it._

_"Umh, hello?" Dick was confused at the silence, Bruce could hear his brows knit. Lord, he missed his son. He didn't even remember what argument drove the final wedge between them._

_"Dick, it's me," he began and immediately felt the shift in tension._

_"What do you want, B? I've told you not to call me." He all but hissed. He was angry, Bruce couldn't fault him for that. They hadn't spoken in months. A lot had happened in those months, most significantly, Dick's partner, Roy, died a horrific death. Bruce couldn't find his son to check on him after that. He kept running away._

_"I know but I need you to come to the manor-"_

_"Hell no."_

_"- I found a child. A boy. He's catatonic, shows signs of severe abuse, he's somehow associated with Joker. He's unresponsive to me but you might be able to get through to him." Dick had a soft, kind personality that reached everyone. If there were cracks in the veil of trauma and shock surrounding Jason, then Dick, if anyone, could bleed through._

_"You've got another kid? Jesus, Bruce, just take him to a fucking doctor or - here's a better idea - put a fucking bullet in his head to save some crook on the street the trouble." Well that was an awful thing to say._

_"Dick-"_

_"Save it. I'm done with you and if you've got any goddamn human decency in you, then leave that kid with someone who won't get him hurt." There was a noise in the background, noises, traffic and the screech of a vehicle turning sharply._

_"I gotta go. I have a lot of shit to take care of, don't fucking bother me again."_

_The flat ringing filled Bruce's ears and he got the impression Dick was in a worse mood than usual when he called. What had happened? Something bad, no doubt, but Dick wouldn't let his father get close enough to check on him. It was troubling but right now, the brain dead child trembling in his living room was more so._

_Grim, Bruce returned to Alfred and Jason, asking himself if he really expected Dick to help? In their heyday, he would have but he had his own things going on, it seemed._

_"No luck, sir?" Alfred asked, still kneeling by the child, on the floor and running a comforting hand up and down his back. Jason hadn't stopped whimpering, or sniffling for that matter, but his breathing was somewhat calmer, no longer coming sharp petrified bursts. Unsurprising really, Alfred's presence had natural healing capabilities._

_Bruce shook his head and knelt back down at his original spot. He didn't care to say anything, he watched Jason and detecting the attention, very slowly, the child inched his gaze up. He never fully locked their sights, he was too timid or too frightened, but it was the first sign of him responding to his environment._

_Offering Jason a soft compassionate smile, Bruce was caught by how bizarre this little thing's eyes were. One bleeding poison green, inhuman in hue, the other doey brown. On top of that, his arm from the elbow down was a completely different skin tone. It didn't look like it belonged there originally, the stitch mark scars were proof of that. What the hell happened to this kid?_

_"Alfred, can you get some water? He's dehydrated. Thank you."_

_They were alone quick, just Bruce and this mysterious young child he didn't know what to do with. He couldn't help but feel his eyes drifting against his protests, to linger on the circular scar to one side of Jason's forehead, visible through the partings in his hair. It was so obviously left behind by a bullet but from the angle and trajectory, it should have been fatal. Definitely. No one should be able to survive a chunk of lead careering through their skull and brain, at least not without extreme damage to the person and while whatever was wrong with Jason could be chalked up to brain damage, it felt like more than that._

_Bruce chewed at his lip in silence, sorting through all the choices laid out before him. He couldn't get officials involved, not until he knew what he was looking at. What he initially had thought was Joker planted a tracker on Jason and planned to follow it to the Bat's lair, but no, there was nothing like that to be found. It was driving him insane, not knowing why Jason was at the abandoned toy store to begin with._

_"Perhaps if I call master Grayson he will be more forthcoming?" Alfred suggested upon his return and while Bruce was going to tell him that wouldn't be a good idea, his attention was grabbed by Jason flinching violently at the word 'Grayson'. He winced as if it hurt him, drawing tightly back into that ball he'd barely uncurled from._

_"That's not a smart thing to do." Bruce observed but he wasn't sure why that would be the case. It couldn't be denied, however, that the name struck fear into the child. Just a thought, he tried other random names but none had the same effect on Jason._

_Concern mounting, Alfred watched by but he wasn't one to be distracted, he leaned down and offered Bruce a tall glass of soft golden liquid. Honey water, he deduced from the distinct colour and delicate floral scent. It was a good choice, the honey would get Jason's energy levels up while the water would tend to his dehydration. Baby steps with this case._

_With careful movements, Bruce lifted Jason's chin and held the rim of the glass to his lips, hoping he got the message. That, at least, didn't come as a struggle, the child had to be badly malnourished yet he chose to merely wet his tongue in the water with a few rapid laps of it._

_When raising his head a fraction, Jason's line of sight flickered tentatively up, and his tongue darted over his lips, Bruce had already sworn to help him, no matter what it took._

* * *

 

Jason just finished playing with Sasha when he stepped out of the elevator, onto the seventieth floor then who else but his favourite Wilson popped into his peripheral?

"Jay, slow down," Grant called after but Jason only hurried his pace. He didn't want to talk to him right now. He was too tired, maybe nearly two hundred hours of being awake was getting to him. But... He did want to know why Grant was drenched in drying blood, his own, presumably. It had poured down his throat and formed a brownish red bib. Cute. Very cute.

" _Hey_ ," Grant stopped him with a hand wrapping around his forearm. Jason was spun on his heel to face him, immediately he made to grab the remote, ready to shock the hell out of him. Had he gone mad, grabbing Jason like that?

" _What_  do you want, thin mint?" Jason snapped, jerking to get his arm back to himself but couldn't, Grant was stronger. And he was relentless today, it seemed.

"You gotta stop wasting our efforts on this Bat guy, people are talking."

"... What are they saying?" He couldn't help his interest. It was always worth knowing what his underlings thought about him, just they wisely never made it known when he was within earshot.

"That Red Hood is frantic and he's scared of the Bat." That struck a wrong chord hard.

In one sharp movement, Jason ripped his arm free and balled his fists, almost hitting Grant in the face. He didn't do anything, it wasn't his fault, Jason repeated it over and over to keep his cool.

"They think I'm fucking  _scared_?" He demanded, reaching for a knife, a gun, anything to correct those assumptions.

"Who the fuck said that?" Jason shoved his way past Grant without a reply, he just had to get out there and restore his unshakeable image. He couldn't let anyone think he was anything but Red Hood, feared, ruthless,  _unafraid_. He spent too long working on face for gossip to crack it even slightly.

"Don't go running off and do something dumb, Jason." Grant said after and he had Jason's arm again, held looser this time. It wasn't a bruising grip but the teen was tempted to go for the remote just to break it. 

"If you rush out there, start shooting people, you're gonna look desperate. Just let it go, we all know it's just stupid gossip."

".... Why're you not being a dick right now?" This wasn't canny. It wasn't correct. It didn't make sense. Jason fucked Grant over too many times for there to be an explanation for this calm, almost caring tone.

"Because I don't like us like this, fighting, hating each other, I don't want it."

"Save your breath, darling. I don't believe you. You don't care and I don't care." That was about totally true. He didn't know what Grant was trying to achieve but Jason wasn't some Disney princess who could be swept off his feet by a few sweet, well-placed words.

"Is it that hard to believe I don't wanna fight with you?"

"Yes." Jason deadpanned. "I killed your sister, impaled you on a Mesopotamian javelin from 85 BC, enslaved you, shock you like a dog when you're stupid and don't give you a say in what I want you to do. You fight with me, sweetheart, and you  _hate_  me."

"But I  _don't_."

"You  _do_  because I told you to."

Hand moving back through his hair, Grant exhaled breathlessly, glancing away for a beat before returning his gaze to interlock with Jason's. Shit. It's like he knew those damn eyes of glass were his weakness. No one had a right to have eyes that pretty, did Jason have to pour acid in them to break the spell? He would. Oh, he  _would_.

"Jay, we used to be inseparable. Can't it go back to that?" That sounded eerily close to a plea that would have tugged at anyone's heartstrings, but darling Wilson forgot one minor detail... Jason had no sympathy, empathy, or an ounce of desire to believe him.

He leaned in  _real_  close, so that their boots all but touched, and he might well be the shorter of them but dammit, if it didn't feel that way. The knowledge that you could blow someone's head off with the flick of a switch was  _very_  empowering.

"I don't know if I can make it any clearer," Jason growled, low, straight into his face, "that I  _don't_  care what you wan-"

Grant kissed him. He took Jason's face in both hands and kissed him. Now  _that_ , was unusual. Actually, it was unheard of. What the hell was he up to? There were risks to grabbing the Hood like this, Grant must know and Jason stabbed him in the gut. Or tried, the blade of his dagger bounced off his kevlar covered belly,  _useless_.

The insistent pressure on his lips was warm and honey sweet and  _everything_  - as well as downright fucking  _suspicious_. Staring as widely as he always did, Jason couldn't help but notice the fresh pink and purple scars peeking their tails from the collar of Grant's suit. He'd tried to hide them, those marks on his throat, and why would he attempt that? He suddenly didn't respect the risk of his actions coming with the punishment of lightning.

Hold the fuck up. It appeared Jason had a wee bit of investigation on the itinerary.

Hand landing on his chest, Jason pushed Grant away, breaking the kiss.

"We'll talk later." He briskly dismissed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand while he walked away, faster than he usually tended to do. That bothered him. That very much bothered him. What did that scheming Wilson think he was doing?

Whatever it was, he was greatly overestimating how far Jason could be taken by his affection. No sir, no smooches and strong arm around his waist were going to distract him. Jesus, he wasn't fucking  _stupid_. No, no Grant was clearly fishing for something, could his line handle the jaws of a shark? Jason was gonna find out. Albeit, it was worrying that he didn't appear to care if his new behaviour was noticeable...

* * *

 

Ravager's suit pooled around his waist, the absence of the grey and black cloth left all of his smooth torso with its perfect tight muscle out to admire. Jason couldn't fight the desire, he'd burst a blood vessel in his brain if he didn't glide his hands over the pecs and abs and biceps, so carefully toned they could make any straight man drool. Heaven knows what it did to him, seated so comfortably in Grant's lap while he reclined on the bed beneath, back propped up against the headboard.

It made Jason forget he was the bloodthirsty Red Hood for a moment and yearn to lose himself in the way Grant kissed his scars like precious gems, running his pink velvet tongue over dips of muscle here and there when he pulled back those unbearable millimetres. Today something was definitely different,  _wrong_ , Grant  _never_  kissed him, always the other way around. Had he meant what he said? At least, that's what Jason would be thinking, if he were a  _complete_  idiot. No, there was more at play here.

Messily, Jason planted a sloppy open-mouthed kiss onto Grant's parted lips, licking past his teeth and tangling their tongues, sucking into his own lungs Wilson's delicious hot, hot breaths. Sure, he might be getting slightly ahead of himself with his acting here but it was working, it was no accident that his fingers traced Grant's neck, skimming over the ridges of his spine. That blood drenching him earlier arose a certain number of suspicions and looky here, no subtle bump of the transmitter.

"What're you doing?" Grant's brows knit in his confusion when Jason broke the kiss almost bitterly.

"Not fucking trusting you."

Sweat budding on his skin, Jason panted despite his refusal to go further, he rolled off Grant, falling onto his back into a mess of crinkled covers. He'd somehow rid himself of the transmitter and this was an act tied to that, he wasn't letting whatever the Wilson boy's angle was hit its target, never mind there was a one percent chance he might've been sincere earlier.

Jason believed in the ninety-nine. It was safest for his empire.

He glanced over at the other; Grant was staring up at the vast nothingness hanging above their heads, gaze utterly void of emotion. His slightly escalated breathing and the silent rustle of his lashes when he blinked were the only signs that he yet lived.

Jason wondered what was on his mind.

It was something the teenage warlord despised, to not be able to hear Grant's thoughts. Could the techies down in the lab do something about that...?

"What're you thinking?" Jason finally lost his fight with restraint, taking Grant by his chin and turning his head in his direction. His face... Lord, it was so pretty, captivating, too bad he couldn't be trusted in any sense of the goddamn word. Maybe if Jason spooned out his frontal lobes..... those might actually regenerate. Waste of effort.

"Thought you wanted this?" Grant was puzzled, adorably so, and Jason just wanted to hit him for being such a good pretender. But then didn't that make two of them?

"You have no idea what I want, sweetie." Jason muttered, releasing him, crushing a handful of sheets into his fist.

"I have a pretty fair idea." Grant propped himself up on one arm, laying on his side and looking at Jason. Jason didn't look at him, not even a slight glance from the corner of his eye.

"Power? Money? People to fear you?....  _Me_?" That was a bold assumption.... It was true, of course -  _probably_  - , but Jason didn't know if he was okay with it. Actually no, he could replace Ravager with any hunk of muscle and good looks that came into his path.

"Honey doll, I have all those things. And I especially have  _you_." He took Grant's throat in his hand as if it proved the point and shifted power to him. Grant could literally rip his fingers off if he decided he didn't want them there anymore.

Wilson made a muffled noise when their teeth clanked together with the force of the flash flood kiss. Instead of reaping satisfaction for his twisted passions, Jason  _bit_  him, making sure he had flesh in his mouth before he tore away.

"Ow! Jesus  _fuck_ ," Grant quickly covered the bleeding corner of his broken lip, staring with accusatory confusion at Jason while Jason licked the dribble of red off his lips. It tasted good. Like power. Like someone else's pain at his hand.

"The fuck's the matter with you?" Grant demanded, rapidly glancing at the blood in the cup of his palm. It wasn't a lot but flesh wounds tended to bleed a fair bit.

"I'm on the same side as my demons, sweetheart. That might be what's wrong with me." Jason dryly yet dramatically explained as he got off the bed, reclosing the links of his belt that opened at some point during that smooch fest.

"Yeah but you ain't a fucking  _vampire_." Again, Grant was bothered by the bite.

"Depends.... You afraid of vampires?" He quirked an inquisitive brow while he pulled his arms through his sleeves.

" _No_."

"Then what does the Ravager fear?" Jason asked in his signature low smoky tone, crawling back onto the bed on all fours. He settled on his knees between Grant's legs, enjoying the way the other uncomfortably crept away an inch or two. For a moment, his gaze tracked the swirls of colour imprinted into his ex-friend's skin, strong  lines of solid black, tattoos he had multiple of but the one that captured Jason's attention today were the three onyx rings surrounding his forearm. To rob, to ravage, to murder, is apparently what they stood for, taken from some ancient Tacitus quote about the primal, uncontrollable urge to destroy the world that humanity had. Dramatic, much?

Never mind, Jason thrived off of drama.

"What makes you scared?" He continued on with that voice when the distraction broke, carefully laying his hand over a thigh of Grant's, stroking the length of it, much to his ex-friend's unsettled mind-state.

"Nothing." Grant insisted, oh-so-sure of himself but that couldn't be true. Everyone feared something. Or someone. Jason was aware Grant was once and might still be, afraid of his mother and father. Tragic. Really tear-jerking.

"Not even of Slade? Of  _daddy_?" Jason asked with feigned sweetness, continuing to caress Grant's leg even while he stiffened with the words.

" _No_? What about  _mommy_? Remember when she threw that garden ornament at you...? You've  _still_  got the scar." To emphasise it, he leaned in to brush aside Grant's swept over bangs that covered the mark, but his extended arm was struck away.

"Shut the fuck up, blad, or I'll rip your fucking jaw off." Expression dark, Grant swore and Jason believed him. Oh, he  _believed_  him but did that scare him? No, he wasn't the one who could be shocked into obedience like a mutt.

"Aww, gonna hurt me, G? Like mommy hurt you?"

Jason was expecting it, Grant hit him across the face. Smack. Knuckles cracked into his cheek almost hard enough to fracture his jawbone, he was thrown onto his side and pinned flat onto the bed's surface. Haha, touchy topic, much?  _Someone_  hadn't sorted out their parental issues...

Pain stinging through his cheek, Jason chuckled on a low breath.

"Your mommy issues are so damn  _hot_."

"Shut. Up!" He whacked Jason again, releasing his arm only long enough to do that. And Jason couldn't stop smiling. This was so erotic!

"I - I don't get what's wrong with you." Grant said and this time, he stammered like a confused lost little child. The edge was gone.

"Why can't you leave me and my family  _alone_? I  _don't_  want to be associated with you."

"Aww, love muffin, when're you gonna learn that I'm a fucking  _curse_? You don't get ten feet of me and survive. Heaven help you if you get skin-to-skin..." To drive the point through, Jason shifted himself against Grant, hooking a leg around his and drawing him closer.

"And I've been  _skin-to-skin_  with you..." Wasting no seconds, Jason hooked another leg around his waist, yanked him down, and turned the tables by flipping them around. He straddled Grant's arms to his sides, once more comfortably seated atop him.

Grant squirmed, growling in frustration when he glared up at him. No one who truly wanted those things he claimed to earlier could develop eyes as black as an ace of spades, and that's how Jason knew Grant was lying. About everything, how unsurprising.

"Baby, I'm the only one who gets to play mind games."

"Get the fuck off me!" He tried to throw Jason off and despite being stronger, he was at a disadvantage beneath. At his adorable protesting, Jason gave a silvery laugh to himself, planting his mouth over Wilson's. It seemed the madder he was, the softer his lips became and right now, they were like cotton.

Bent over him, Jason was safely clad in his kevlar but Grant's torso remained nice and exposed, stabbing him would be so easy but Jason didn't want to mess up the sheets. He slipped tongue past Grant's teeth, thought about putting something sharp past there too, like a throwing star or maybe even an icepick....

Metal swished when he finally decided to bring his knife out, pressing the point against Grant's sternum. He hissed with the action, Jason broke the kiss with a wicked curve of a smile.

"Get any ideas of backstabbing, and I'll put this dagger in your chest,  _carve_  out your fucking heart and eat it."

"You're insane, blad. Completely  _fucking_   _insane_."

"Don't forget it."

With the smirk still prominent, Jason got off him, licking the length of the blade. It had pricked Grant's skin, there was string of tasty, tasty blood on it. He headed for the door, sheathing the weapon in a fluid practised motion.

One last test... he subtly pressed down on the switch in his pocket. Hmm, nothing. No violent shock of lightning like he should have expected and that confirmed he had a fucking problem. How'd the wretched dog get it out by himself?

Jason would get to that later since as of now-

He caught it from his peripheral, the swish of a blade half a second before it was sent through the air at him. He dodged - or ducked - the worst of the attack, but the aim was true, faster than he, and it didn't take the burst of fire shooting through him to realise there was a fucking hunting dagger sticking out of his shoulder, jutting through the hairline where kevlar connected to kevlar with a frail seam. Looks like he wasn't the only one using touch to scout for the other's weaknesses just seconds ago, those wandering hands on him were rather suspicious in hindsight.

Pain be damned, Jason spun around and pulled a gun. Grant had already zipped his suit up to protect his middle and found the time to unsheath his katana in the same movement. Yeah, for sure, that was gonna end up going through one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were so, so many smarter ways this part coulda been executed but goddammit, I needed gay scenes, okay? For my own reasons...
> 
> Now we learn that as a younger guy, as a WILSON, Grant is naturally gonna think he knows best (better than his old man) and is just gonna go ahead and kill Jason himself, completely ignoring everything discussed. Sigh. Nothing can go wrong.


	4. A Master's Apprentice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Bats, I presume?" Out of nowhere, Jason appeared at his left, sporting a cocky crooked grin and raising his gun to shoot three of his own men when they tried getting between him and Bruce in the effort to protect their leader

".... Just pull the fucking thing  _out_." Jason grit through his pink teeth, hands closing tighter around the edges of the surgical table he sat on. Doctor Javi hovered nervously by, able but not willing to grip the knife's hilt and drag the damn blade out of Jason's shoulder. He didn't want to hurt his boss in fear of being hurt back far worse. But if he didn't remove the fucking thing now, Jason was gonna lose it.

After a final inner struggle that ended with the smart choice, Javi took the knife, its leather binds creaking under pressure. Jason shut his eyes, steeling himself for the torturously slow way the metal slid out of his back. The serrated edge sliced through muscle, he held his breath, disallowing himself to make any noises of pain.

To distract himself, he recounted what happened. He pushed Grant a little far, he reacted, blades sang through the air, bullets were fired, and Jason was able to be chased exactly where he wanted to go. The  _lab_.

Parting his eyelids a crack, Jason watched the Superman clone as it breathed heavily and without a nameable expression on its big chalky face. Its jaws were open, breaths coming and going hoarsely, beady black eyes blinking mindlessly at the floor. It didn't understand anything, the world, its purpose in it, what it was, why it was suddenly out of its container, etcetera.

Drying blood ran in red paint streaks up Bizarro's arm from the splatter on its fist and its knuckles. Jason was pleasantly fond of how obedient Bizarro really was. A useful tool Roman was truly idiotic to never put to use.

Metal clattered when the crimson drenched knife was set on the surgical table. Jason blinked in surprise, was it out already? Burning,  _stinging_  pain burrowed a lesion into his shoulder, through it, around it, but it didn't take his full attention. He was having some trouble focusing. Shit, was he drowsy? From blood loss, perhaps? Well, judging by the red puddles leading from the elevator to here, that was likely.

With more help from Javi than he cared to dwell on, Jason eased his shirt off, and then his kevlar, both sopping. He was laid on his belly while Javi pulled his skin back together with a needle and thread.

Cheek pressed against the cool surface of the surgical table, Jason took a little breath, calming his tense nerves. He was now gazing at the four walls of blast-proof glass, a containment unit in the centre of the lab intended to specifically hold metas. After Bizarro smashed the hell out of him, Jason had the clone chuck Grant in there. He was restrained, extreme supermax-style. Through his wrists, directly between the bones of his arms, thick U-bolts locked to chains pulled his limbs apart, holding them over his head.

Along the chains holding him ran wires, delicately woven between the links and continuing past the U-bolts, reaching into his wrists with long IV needles.

It was barely visible that Grant's muscles subtly twitched in pain and Jason relished every second of it. His darling's body was gradually healing, struggling to fill in the bashed chest cavity. He was only one percent conscious. His impaled wrists recovered quicker, flesh and skin had grown to hold the U-bolts in a snug embrace of pure agony.

Grant hung there by his chains, limp, unmoving say for the shallow wet breaths and flutter of his lashes here and there. His beautiful dusky skin wasn't quite so lovely now, it had lost at least seven shades of pallor and honestly, it made much more sense this way, considering he came from a family of platinum blonds and people who could pass as albino. Why was  _he_  the exception? Now that he was a little under the weather, Jason's head was asking him all these questions that had no relevance or importance. 

"When he's healed sufficiently," Jason mumbled, half into the table beneath, pausing to swallow and close his eyes for a tick. Just a tick.

"... I want you to get me a shit tonne of bleach, Javi. Go nuts, I need...  _bleach_."

The doctor above him frowned in confusion, utterly perplexed but he knew better than to argue or talk back. He'd be sorry if he did, Jason just wanted his fucking bleach, no idiot was denying him that.

He must've passed out at some point because the next thing he knew was that he was waking up with heavy blinks and blurring gaze sweeping sluggishly over the lab. Nothing had changed that he could initially tell, other than he had an audience consisting of one small redheaded girl whose concern showed despite her lack of ability to form distinct expressions.

" _Jay_?" Sasha's small soft voice barely crept past his disorientation to his registry. She tugged at his arm, rising up to stand on her toes so her worried round face was peering down at him instead of up.

Muting a groan, Jason swallowed back the sandy dryness invading his mouth, his throat, and propped himself up on his elbows, spine curving into an uncomfortable arch when he lay on his belly like this.

"Are you okay?" She asked. "You're hurt."

"Just a flesh wound." He grumbled, wincing when a stray breath pulled on his stitches. Fuck, he was gonna murder-

"Ravager broke four of your ribs, sir." Javi said, his presence coming out of nowhere. Shit, so he was still here? Jason didn't bother turning his head to find exactly where, but at a distance the man felt was safe, he assumed.

"And where the fuc -  _ctory_  is he?" Sasha's eyes widened on him for the split second that he was going to finish that word, but he made a point not to pass his god awful speaking ways onto her but sometimes, he came close to breaking that intention.

"Where you left him, sir." Javi motioned to the glass cell holding up residence in the heart of the lab and sure enough, the Wilson held within it hadn't gone anywhere. He was awake now, icy cold eyes frozen over by hate as he stared in silence at Jason, keeping all the pain from his gaze in favour of the seething urge to dismember his ex-playmate.  _One_  of them was dying. Oh, one of them was dying very,  _very_ ,  _extremely_  slowly.

"D'you get my bleach?" Jason asked, sitting up with a subtle wince he managed to mostly conceal. Of course, Javi had followed through, bottles of the stuff sat in a pyramid stack meters away, Wallmart brand, Jason dully noted. He pushed off the table, swayed slightly, and wasn't really desperately in need of Sasha's hand sliding into his for balance, but it was a warm kind gesture he squeezed lightly.

"Did that man in the fish tank hurt you?" Sasha asked, a small glare already resident on her face. Her jaw was grit. She walked with him to the white plastic bottles.

"He did." Jason nodded towards Grant, feeling the heat of his leer but not caring about it. The top half of his suit cut away by god knows who, webs of scars tangled visibly with unmarred skin, reminiscent of Ravager's chest being smashed in the way it was by a well-aimed punch from a Kryptonian. Soon, there wouldn't even be scars left to tell that glorious tale.

"... I wanna cut him... for hurting you." Sasha muttered, tone sinister the way no little girl's should be, and she stared at the floor with set intentions. Glancing at her, Jason bent to take a bottle in his hand and rose with it.

"You can, Sash. You can." He turned the thing in his hand and read the warning label printed on the back. WARNING: Corrosive, keep out of reach of children. Causes severe eye and skin irritation or burns. Rinse off upon contact. Avoid contact with skin, eyes, and clothes. Contact may cause ulcers, burns, or eczema. Ingestion may cause severe burning to mouth, throat, and stomach, can prove fatal....  _Yes_. This is what he needed. All those cautionary statements, pleas from manufacturer to purchaser to use it wisely, it was idealistic. Jason intended to only do wise things with it.

"But first, we gotta handle that pesky healing factor of his. See, he'll recover in minutes if we don't."

Dark, Sasha cracked her knuckles. "That's quite annoying."

"Uh-huh." He agreed with a bob of his head, feeling the way Grant's gaze tracked him move around the cell, until he stood by the control panel and the IV ports, the cylindrical glass containers the IV cables attached to his ex-friend ran into. The ports were empty now, thirsting for the fluid of its user's desire and with a wolfish grin, Jason opened the bottle and poured in a generous slosh of bleach. It was potent shit, the smell alone was enough to make his throat burn. That's how he knew it was fucking perfect for this purpose.

"Head's up, darlin', this is gonna sting." He sneered.

"Go back to hell,  _Jason_." Was the vicious response and the teen couldn't help but feel anticipation towards the moment he could, once and for all, smite that fieriness.

"How 'bout we make it a trip for two?"

Grant spat at him, blood and saliva, but he couldn't disguise how part of him was afraid of what Jason had planned. And he should be.

The bleach travelled quickly along the tube, Jason watched in excitement while Grant's expression neared dread as it got closer and closer, until it  _finally_  reached the point of the syringe, dug deep into the soft undersides of his wrists. He flinched at first, squirming, shifting in discomfort when the cold corrosives entered his bloodstream.

And then - right on time - the agony kicked in and Grant quickly found himself thrashing against his binds, cries stifled only by biting his lip. Just a trio of seconds and his teeth were almost through it. Oh, Jason could only imagine this was like fucking  _acid_  in his veins.

"What's that for?" Sasha inquired as she rose onto her tiptoes, curiously studying what was going on with Grant. It didn't take him long to desperately be ripping at himself for freedom while Jason only poured another bottle into the port.

"Bleach is very poisonous, Sash," he began explaining, "and right now, Ravie's got around two litres in him - and counting. His regeneration immunises him to most all poisons, it's working overtime to get his blood clean which  _means_...." he added the last with a tip of his head and a smile of promise.

"... That his healing is only focusing on that at the moment. It can't stretch itself thin, it fixes the biggest issues first and as long as we keep pumpin' bleach into 'im, we can cause any amount of long-lasting damage that we'd like."

Sasha's eyes lit up with an evil glimmer when Jason spoke, staring up at him in both awe and anticipation for the cutting part she so enthusiastically mentioned she wanted to be a part of. Jason would gladly indulge her, killing and torture were important skills he himself was fluently versed in long before he was her age. Now, Jason never  _ever_  said that the things Joker taught him were useless or that they shouldn't be passed on. If murder was art then he was fucking Picasso, and didn't the famed Spanish man have an apprentice?

Smiling at her fondly, Jason drew a dagger from his thigh holster, kneeling before her and placing a hand over her shoulder. Sasha had  _complete_  trust in him, just like Jason used to in his clown daddy. How history doth repeat itself.

"This is for you, Sasha." Holding the knife by its blade, he offered her the leather bound hilt of it and without falter, readiness anyone could be proud of, Sasha took it firmly into her hand.

"Thank you, Jay." She gave a very princess-like curtsy and he craned his neck in a respectful bow to her high position. Grinning wickedly, Sasha turned to the glass and to Grant; he was shivering violently, corrosive poisons breaking down the walls of his veins almost faster than his healing factor could fight it back.

"I wanna trace those pictures." With a serious face, Sasha announced, gesturing with her new weapon to the tattoos stretched across Grant's skin. The blade glinted under the fluorescent lights hanging overhead.

* * *

 

From the moment she heard what transpired, Duela hurried through tens of floors, looking for Jason and looking for  _Grant._  She had to find him before that fucking psychopath  - who should have been drowned at  _birth_  - could hurt him.  Or worse; kill him. 

It had really been a matter of time before one of the boys couldn't take the other anymore, her money had been on Grant snapping first and unfortunately, she was correct. Jason was cool and calculated for however long he needed to be to get what he wanted, he could sit by and never let anyone know how many murderous urges went through his head a day.

But Grant wasn't like that. He had an indignant personality, if he felt something was wrong he would fucking correct it. Honestly, it was a marvel he'd put up at all with Jason's insistent crush turned soon-to-be fatal attraction. 

Duela remembered the boys were a year above her back in school and that they always went everywhere together with Grant orchestrating the majority of their escapades, all of which inevitably ended with more trouble than they were worth. Jason followed behind like a meek little lamb, which, in hindsight, was probably the first sign of his attraction to his then-friend, the willingness to do whatever Wilson wanted, no matter Jason often took the fall for both of them. 

It was like that back then, Grant was more or less a total jerk while Jason pretty much worshipped the ground he walked on. Duela suspected Grant must have at least had an inkling that his friend had a hopeless crush on him, but Wilson was never one to be uncomfortable around people, no matter they had unreciprocated feelings for him. He wouldn't let that come between him and Jason.

And over the course of months, Jason had made Grant fully fluent in what discomfort truly was with his creepy advances and spontaneously pouncing on him out of dark nooks. Considering the Hood's hush-hush past with men who had power, men who would use him, it was even more disgusting how he manipulated Grant into bed. It wasn't twisted love, just obsession of control. 

Duela wasn't even going to attempt the impossible and hide her urgency as she speed-walked through the hallway, towards the elevator when  _ping_ , the doors sprung open and out stepped who but the megalomaniac on her mind? 

She stopped dead in her tracks.

Hands behind his back, Jason wore a smug look painted irritatingly thickly on his features and it was clear why; he had two of his henchmen dragging a half-dead Ravager along with them. They had him by his arms, pulling his body across the floor as casually as if they were taking out the trash, leaving wide paint strokes of blood on the carpeted floor. Grant's head was lolled onto one shoulder, dark circled eyes shut, bleeding from so many places that Duela's horrified gaze didn't know where to land first. 

U-bolts pierced both wrists, flesh grown around them, chains hanging from those. His tattoos.... oh god, they were gone, in their place left only crimson divots of raw muscle. His healing factor wasn't working to repair the damage, those wounds should have closed up already, what the fuck did Jason do?

"What the hell have you done to him?!" Duela screamed, raising the crowbar in her hand to bash Jason's deranged brains in. She swung it at him wildly, too angry to aim and she just wanted to hurt him, and being what he was, he took advantage of her uncoordinated rage. Jason caught the crowbar deftly near its clawed head, wrenching it forward and punching her square in the face, all in the same fluid movement. The little bitch was wearing brass knuckles, the blow hurt like fuck, breaking her lip, smashing some teeth in, making it as if her whole brain jolted in her skull.

Stunned, Duela stumbled back or would have, if Jason didn't have an iron grip on her wrist, twisting her arm behind her back and efficiently pinning her to the hallway wall.

"I've had it with your fucking outbursts." Jason hissed into her ear but his words hardly went through, not with the way her head was spinning. God, did he crack her skull? Everything around her was blurring, the wall, her hand pressed against it, the pressure of Jason holding her, but she couldn't space out when it came to her friend's dangerously wounded state. Grant was pulled past and he was still out cold, thick pulpy crimson dribbling down his chin, hinting to worse damage residing on the inside. 

Desperate, Duela tried to break free and get to him, protect him as he had her so many times  when no one else would, but Jason was relentless, hitting her over the back of the head again and this time, she did scream. Speckles of blood erupted from her mouth, hitting the murky grey wallpaper inches from her face. Without her sayso, her knees buckled and her body slumped onto the floor. She barely made out Jason's last words to her before everything plummeted to darkness,

"I think I'll toss you on the pyre with Wilson if his wellbeing means that much to you. You two can go out together."

* * *

 

"Slade!" Bruce tried not to snap but ended up doing so anyway, frustrated, lunging off the roof and after the mercenary whose sanity he was constantly questioning. Wind blasted him in the face and he was running to keep up with wherever Slade was going. Red Hood's lair loomed in the near distance, it was a fair estimate he lost his patience waiting for his son to show up as agreed and was going to find him. Grant missed their agreed rendezvous by an hour and there was still no sign of him. They shouldn't count themselves surprised if he was dead. 

"Slade,  _stop_." Bruce managed to catch Slade's wrist and ducked the blow aimed to hit his face.

"They're going to  _kill_  my boy." He hissed through his grit teeth, jerking to free his limb. Past him, Bruce could see the outer yard surrounding Hood's building, often dotted with his underlings, idly standing by in the wait for a task, but this time it was different. They were gathered in nervous rows and whispering among themselves in tight huddled bunches, glancing to their surroundings.

Something was happening.

A splash of bold colour entered the scene through the front doors, red,  _Jason_ , his unmistakable hood recognisable from this distance. He strode out of his building exuding confidence Bruce could never have imagined him with, taking that he remembered Jason as that terrified little child trembling in the corner of his living room. At least, that's what he focused on while Slade tuned into something entirely different.

Jason had a quadruple of henchmen following him, two of them dragging an unmoving form with. The familiar grey and black combat suit only reached Ravager's hips, the rest cut away, there were a mere few spots on his torso where his skin was visible beneath the layers of blood in various stages of ageing. He'd clearly been tortured, god knows for how long or how. There was so much blood it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.

Along with Grant, they were hauling a stunned teenage girl behind.

Undoubtedly, Jason figured out the underlying scheme, faster than anyone credited him for. Petrified little birdie truly had done a one-eighty and became a criminal mastermind. And  _how_  did he bypass the famous Wilson healing factor?

"...  _Grant_." Slade breathed, jaw tight, fists balling and unballing in unison. He stared in blatant dread as they dragged his son across the coarse rock grounds, towards a post with a pyre built at the foot. Canisters of gasoline stood at the ready. They were going to burn him.

Glancing at the boy's father from the corner of his eye, Bruce had never seen emotion expressed so visibly on Slade's face. It was both dread and the unspoken promise that every bastard with their hands on his child was going to die.  _Slowly_.

Of course, it was stupid to leap headlong into a crowd of armed assailants but there was never any question whether or not Slade would. The best Bruce could do was go with and provide backup.

The two of them stood on the building opposite Hood's execution grounds, Slade drew his blade and lunged off the roof, in freefall for less than seconds before he was impaling the first man to be in his reach. His sword stuck the man like a pig, through the head and out the belly. He didn't even get to scream. At the thud of the mercenary landing with the corpse, Jason's two-coloured glare snapped to them, lethal but not exhibiting all that much surprise at their appearance. 

The Bat swallowed when his boy looked at him -  _through_  him, it was  _definitely_  Jason. And... there was no recognition in his eyes. None. He ordered his men to attack without a second thought, as if they were utter strangers. 

But there wasn't a lot of time to mourn that, not with the wave of attackers running in his direction, weapons raised overhead, ready to bring crashing down. Great. He grit his teeth, body prepared for the fight.

Bruce wasn't for killing but knew he couldn't stop Slade from doing it, it might be necessary for this situation, but he restrained himself to blows intended to stun, incapacitate, and never go the extra distance to the kill. 

As expected, Slade made a beeline in the direction of his son, cutting down any and all idiotic enough to try stopping him. 

" _Bats_ , I presume?" Out of nowhere, Jason appeared at his left, sporting a cocky crooked grin and raising his gun to shoot three of his  _own_  men when they tried getting between him and Bruce in the effort to protect their leader. Without so much as a careless glance, Jason walked over their twitching corpses as he approached without any worry about the mercenary ripping his ranks to shreds in the background.

"So glad to officially meet you."  He gave a little mock bow when there were less than three meters of space from him to Bruce and the Bat wasn't unaware of how easy it would be for him to strike Jason, but the boy was armed and not dumb enough to expose his throat to his enemy. Or, who he perceived as his enemy as if it wasn't absolutely unavoidable, Bruce wasn't going to hurt Jason. Whatever hurricane of madness had him in its grips, Jason was still  _his_  kid. No matter he didn't appear to remember that.

"Not much of a talker, huh?" Jason tilted his head, his smirk never flickering the slightest bit fainter, and it didn't go unnoticed that his finger was twitching on the trigger of his gun. A Glock 21 gen 5, Bruce quickly noted, it was familiar since Dick used to wield the very same make and model while on the force.

"I know you probably don't remember me, Jason," Bruce began, fists raised with a batarang gripped in one, ready in case he needed to prick skin. 

"But I know you. I know what you've done and Deathstroke is going to tear you to bits for hurting and killing his children. You well deserve it, but I don't want you harmed." For better or for worse, that was completely true. Jason was more deserving of capital punishment than the Joker at this point, he'd earned it with every one of the crimes he'd stacked high as the heavens, but Bruce couldn't let that happen. It made him stupid and it made him put everyone else in danger but dammit, he wasn't eager for his kid's pain and suffering.

At his words, Jason arched a brow with an amused scoff. As expected, he thought they were strangers. 

"I'm sorry, but who the fuck are you again?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be honest with me, my dudes, am I losing coherency in my writing? Or am I just having an off day and overthinking stuff? I don't know.


	5. I Love You But Would Never Treat You That Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You must be Grant's and Rose's dad? Nice ta meet ya." The grin spread and the points of his teeth flashed. "But you're a little late, I'm afraid. I've got a pattern by now, 'm thinkin' 'bout offing Joey next, he still cute?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be collecting your gag-reflexes here.

_It took a while, it took a week, but Jason crawled out of his shell enough to meekly shy after Alfred as he went about his tasks around the mansion. The child still wasn't talking, not a word, and making eye contact once in a blue moon, and it was sad to think him ghosting around like a lost lamb was an improvement. Often, he stared into space for hours on end._

_Bruce hadn't found anything on who he was.  Nothing. No birthplace, no family, no residence, not even what Jason's full name was.  Running his DNA through the system was a long shot, given how a fourteen-year-old was unlikely to have a criminal record,  so imagine his surprise when ping, results popped up on the screen. After so many nights of searching for clues in vain, Bruce almost fell out of his chair and onto the floor of the Batcave when information files filled the screen._

_But what did he get his hopes up for? None of this was about Jason, his monitor displayed images of a thirty-something woman, softly curled blond hair, blue eyes as clear as a mid summer's day, pale rose-hued lips naturally pouted, it seemed. Or was she glaring at the person taking her mug shot?_

_The short description revealed that she was an esteemed doctor at Gotham Central Hospital until her illegal abortion practise came to light and she was discharged and pressed for charges. Thanks to some blink in the justice system, or just the pretty face of the accused, she ended up getting off on parole and half a million in fines, which she never paid, of course._

_That was fifteen years ago._

_After that, the doctor somehow got involved with a group of dangerous religious extremists Bruce had dealt with once or twice in the past, a handful of nutjobs preaching about the end of the world and humanity as it was known. They called themselves Solitary, more than once they'd been connected to the scene of a brutal crime that defied the known limits of human evil. What religion were they extremists for? Why, LaVeyan Satanism, of course. The act of embracing one's dark side, twisted desires, and believing themselves to be the god of their own world._

_It's mindsets like this that make people the most dangerous, which is why Bruce was reluctant to admit this woman, Sheila Haywood, had to be Jason's mother. The system wasn't faulty, it brought up the closest match to the DNA he submitted and that meant he was looking at Jason's next of kin._

_His mother's involvement with the dangerous, murder-lusting members of Solitary could well play a part in Jason's current condition, it wasn't anywhere past them to harm a child. Especially to this extent._

_Bruce needed to talk with Sheila, he might be able to find her at Solitary's last known location of recent activity._

_He rose, turning and about to pull his cowl on for a night of hunting down the enemy, when he braked dead in his tracks, walking smack-bang almost over Jason. The boy was standing less than a meter from his chair, staring up at him. His eyes were big, the left one partially hidden by his white bangs, and they were brimming with an emotion he couldn't name and had never seen before._

_"What're you doing here? Where's Alfred?" Bruce managed to ask when quickly, he got over his fright. He sent the concealed door to the cave a glance, how did Jason find it and let himself down here? Alfred was supposed to be minding him...._

_As expected, Jason didn't respond, unless you count that very slow blink as a reply. His gaze didn't so much as stray to the woman's - his mother's - image on the monitor, he either somehow hadn't seen her, didn't recognise her, or didn't remember her. Which of those was the likeliest?_

_Extremely unhurriedly, Jason removed his hands from the pockets of his hoodie and he was holding a framed photograph, pointing to it like an accusation. It was taken from Bruce's office, of him, Alfred, and Dick on the last Christmas where they were on speaking terms. It was a family photo, all smiles and arms around one another. It was a nice memory, anyone could tell by looking at it._

_That's not what Jason thought, however, not as his fingernail pressed into the glass above Dick. His knuckles were white, curled around the frame, wrist shaking from the pressure. This was more emotion than Bruce had imagined him capable of._

_Jason didn't say anything but he didn't have to, the low growl was explanatory enough._

_Bruce's eyes moved from the child's face, to the photo, and back again in confusion._

_"... What's wrong, Jaylad? It's just a picture-"_

_Swinging his arm to the side, Jason smashed the frame and glass on the edge of the computer table, hand coming back lightning-fast with a deadly shard clenched in it. He tried to bury it in Bruce's flank, it would have hit had he been any other person in the world; he caught Jason's wrist, instinctively throwing his weight behind the child and pinning him to the table._

_He didn't hurt Jason, not even once, applying just enough pressure to keep such a small, light creature immobilised but the instant there was any force on him, he went entirely still, frightened little tremors returning from their brief absence. Bruce frowned, drawing back somewhat, brows knit as Jason's mood took this drastic one-eighty._

_Given how he'd began to suspect he was dealing with a mute child, it was surprised to hear words coming from him. They were extremely quiet, frail, but distinct as they were whimpery,_

_"I'm sorry - I - I'm s - sorry-" Rapidly, Jason blinked back tears flooding his vision, shaking from fear but not because he knew an adult shouldn't handle a child like this. He was acting as if it was his fault, his earnings, and that getting hurt by a big man was alright. He thought it was alright._

_Releasing Jason, Bruce turned the child around by his shoulders, he pulled him into his arms without a second thought. The folds of the Bat's cape enveloped the small body, tucking him into safety and warmth, said warmth doing nothing to ease the quivering._

_Under his breath, Jason continued with the same uneven mantra, even as he turned his face to bury it in Bruce's shoulder._

_"Shh. It's alright, Jason. It's okay." He promise, carefully carding his widened fingers through the boy's hair, looking past him at the screen displaying the doctor. Maybe tomorrow night he would go interview her, but tonight, he was off on account of more pressing duties._

* * *

 

"I'm sorry, but who the fuck are you again?" With his crooked smirk prominent, Jason tilted his head, eyes Bruce both knew and didn't sparkling with a glitter of madness. Jason wasn't confused by this, just mildly entertained. Behind him - on all four sides, actually, Slade effectively tore his thugs limb from limb. Bruce winced when the mercenary got his hands on the men holding his son. People weren't supposed to turn inside out like that...

"Oh, I get it!" Jason chuckled demonically, in such a way that made it easy to understand why some people on the streets were calling him the red hooded devil.

"You're tryna fuck with my head, get in there, an' then -  _bam_!" Bruce jumped inwardly, alarmed by the sudden noise yelled at him. The lunatic teenager laughed merrily -  _dementedly_  - and eerily, he reminded the Bat of Joker in ways no one should be able to replicate. Except Joker never took it this far, there was an unsaid limit that he respected. Not Jason. Everything wasn't enough for him.

"But 'nough talk, Bats. First one to scream loses." Grinning, Jason leapt at him, knife in hand, swinging it expertly through the air for that same kill shot he tried so long ago. Bruce dodged it and his estranged teenager wasn't so easy to counter this time, he aimed a high kick that could take a man's head off; Bruce caught his leg, threw him but he backflipped onto his feet, unscathed and cocky as ever.

He came again, Bruce blocked a series of punches in quick succession against his forearms, pacing himself until he could catch a window of weakness. Jason was inexperienced in the sense that he hit hard first. 

The Bat hit a kick back, caught a fist when it tried to land itself in his face, and spun Jason around by his arm, in seconds he could have the teenager flat on the ground, were it not for the leg hooking around his and yanking to floor him. Bruce had a good stance, Jason was a fair bit weaker, that tactic got him nowhere but in the place he needed to be with his knife. 

The blade was an extension of his body, he wielded it so naturally, switching with ease from his left hand to right to plunge it through the seams of kevlar covering the Bat's middle. Bruce ground his teeth when it graced his flank, nothing but a flesh wound but it stung, as did the myriad of punches that caused him to stumble. Blow after blow, they traded them left and right.

"Perchance, d'you know a ridiculously pretty ex-cop called Grayson?" Jason chattily asked, small talking while Bruce rapidly bent backwards, on his knees, a vicious kick tearing the space above him into two, the wind folding around the limb desiring to break bones. A heartbeat of vulnerability on Jason's side was his penalty for the wasted manoeuvre, and the window Bruce crashed his knee into the instant he was back on his feet. The boy choked on air, body buckling from the blow but laughed breathlessly regardless. 

"That was harder than the rest!" He cartwheeled meters away. 

"I hit a nerve? Hope so," Jason pulled a gun, smirking. "You fight just like him. I wonder if you'll  go down the same way too?"

What the hell did he mean -  _wait_. Wait, no. Did he-?

Bang!

Jason's aim was locked on the part of Bruce's face not shielded by his cowl, damn kid woulda blown his jaw off in the second he was distracted for, had a gunman not come hurtling through the air, crashing into Jason and throwing the shot off by a lifetime.

"Keep your fucking head in the game, Bats!" Slade ferociously snapped at him, tossing another man at Jason like two hundred pounds of muscle wasn't shit,  but it certainly bore its toll on a teenager such as their enemy, knocked clean off his feet by this projectile if the last one didn't do the trick. 

Swish sang the sword when Slade unsheathed it, his intentions clear as he approached Jason, pinned by the dead-weight man on top of him, squirming to pull himself free but when Deathstroke stepped into his space, Jason smirked up at him. Jesus, did this boy have no self-preservation instincts?

"You must be Grant's and Rose's dad? Nice ta meet ya." The grin spread and the points of his teeth flashed. "But you're a little late, I'm afraid. I've got a  pattern by now, 'm thinkin' 'bout offing little Joey next. He still cute?" 

Face like thunder, Slade dealt him a well-earned and rage-filled kick across the face, whipping his head to the side, speckles of red bursting between his teeth. Despite his mouth filling with blood, Jason chuckled past it. Yep, no self-preservation.

"I take it that's a  _yes_." 

The sword was raised rapidly, Bruce was going to stop it coming down because it was  _Jason_ , because Jason knew something about Dick, but he didn't have to act, a large shadow cast upon them and then  _bam_! For a heart stop, Slade and Bruce thought they were faced down by Superman, blue suit, red cape, but their second glance revealed this was worse, a Bizarro clone loomed above them. 

Shit. 

" _Move_!" Slade or Bruce yelled. Bizarro brought both fists into the ground where they stood the second they got out of the way, smashing the asphalt for a five-meter radius. Bizarro growled, shot after and it was clear splitting up was the smartest choice. The clone couldn't brutally pound them both into the pavement. 

Now, Deathstroke could bounce back from a tank rolling over him, but Bruce would be lying if he didn't say he feared the worst when Bizarro enveloped the mercenary's arm and yanked him into a skull-crushing punch. But Slade was... well,  _Slade;_ he spat out blood from the side of his mouth and whacked the clone right back, whipping a fist across its face so hard its head snapped back. 

"Get my boy, I'll hold this thing off." The order was given between brutal strikes that had Bizarro stumbling back, not expecting any such onslaught from a mere human. Human was one thing, pissed off dad was a whole other.

A glance revealed Jason was gone and the bulk of his troops were down. Rapidly scanning the grounds, Bruce ran to get to the two badly wounded teenagers before someone else did. Crap, this whole thing went badly but what did they expect? Jason's forces overwhelmed them ten thousand to one. They were in no position to take on a literal army.

Thanks to Slade, they'd entirely lost the element of surprise, Jason knew he had to watch his back now.... But if it was his kid at risk, Bruce would have done the fucking exact same thing. 

By some wonder that could only be explained away with 'he's a Wilson', Grant had regained enough consciousness and crumbs of strength to drag himself to who Bruce assumed was his friend, the girl lying immobile in a lake of their intermingled blood..... Jesus  _Christ_ , what the fuck was wrong with Jason? The damage on Slade's son had to be his doing, Bruce was looking at an eighteen-year-old with chunks of his flesh missing and white splotches contrasting his dusky skin. With grim clarity, the Bat made the realisation those were bleach burns.  _Bleach_. Grant's hair was wet with it, pigment washing out with every drip. Pale, pale moonlight blond shone beneath the sable matte brown.

Jason  _soaked_  him in bleach.  _Why_?

As thick as the waves of pain coming off him were, Grant wasn't focusing on his own terrible, no doubt  _agonising_  condition and instead was trying to shake the girl awake. In his arms, she was unresponsively slumped over, so much blood in her hair that there was no way her skull wasn't cracked. 

"Duela, c - c'mon, wake up. W - wake up,  _please_ ," Grant pleaded,  _whimpered_ , tears sticky on his cheeks, mixing with the contents of his veins and making for one unpleasant mess. Bruce's hands landed on his shoulders, he jumped responsively to the touch and person he wasn't expecting. 

"Kid, get up, we need to go." Bruce's fingers were careful where they chose to close around him, urging him onto his feet but he tightened his grip around the girl, violently slapping the man's hands away. His teeth bared and they were pinker than his gums. 

"Fuck off, I - I'm  _not_  leaving her." Defiant as he was hopeless, Grant's eyes darted quickly from meeting his to landing back on Duela, limp, eyelids parted a crack to reveal her glassy vacant stare. Lord, the kid didn't realise, did he? Didn't realise that - 

"She's  _dead_. Hey, Grant, look at me," Bruce took his face, making him look away from his friend's body. If she wasn't deceased then she would be soon, her unresponsive pupils were a warning sign of brain damage. By the fist-shaped indentation in her head, it was bad. 

"Duela is  _dead_. You  _can't_  help her."

"Wh - what? N - no, she isn't." He was delirious off the pain and blood loss, that was obvious, he wasn't thinking straight or realising what was in front of him. Honestly? If there was time for it, Bruce would find this heartbreaking. 

And then on cue, whether it was needed or not, Slade ran up to them. God knows what he distracted the clone with but it was nowhere to be seen.

"Goddammit, you're  _useless_." The mercenary growled, shoving Bruce away from his son and in the same movement, he dragged Grant off the ground with far less care for the weight of the situation than the Bat had been trying to handle it with.  

"D - dad, lemme go," Grant struggled against his father's hands on him when they prevented him from picking Duela off the crimson drenched and charred earth. Slade - ever patient and understanding man that he was - gripped Grant hard around his neck, pointing an accusing finger in his face.

" _You_  are fucking  _stupid_. You've already fucked everything up, you  _murdered_  your sister, now you want to drag some dead girl with? You're lucky I don't let that clone rip your head off-"

"God's sake,  _Slade_. He's your  _child_  and he's hurt.  _Badly_." This altercation, it was none of Bruce's business, not his family, not his concern, but he wasn't about to stand back and watch this 'I love you but would never treat you that way' bullshit parenting continue. 

It was risky but he pushed Slade's hands off the kid - surprisingly to no violent repercussion -  then knelt to gather Duela off the ground. She wasn't dead, as he'd initially thought, but to say she was teetering close to it was a dangerous understatement. Even if she was gone, Grant wouldn't leave her, which meant she had to come with. Bruce rested her head on his shoulder, glancing at the two Wilsons.

"Let's  _go_. Jason's not hiding because he's scared, he's getting another weapon." And there was the small matter of the Superman clone employed by Jason to kill them, but for the time being, there was no sign of Bizarro. What Slade drastically lacked in basic parenting skills, he made up for with combating the enemy. 

Since  _one_  of the present adults treated the situation without aggression, and they weren't leaving his friend, Grant willingly limped after Bruce, gritting his teeth, muffling a whine of pain and wincing from every step... but they were lucky, looks like his healing factor was gradually kicking back in. Keyword,  _gradually_. The chunks cut out of him were still gaping.

Bruce didn't know why Slade even bothered; he moved to brace his son but Grant put up a hand to stop him, glaring, growling, and it was all he needed to do to ward off the help he both needed and didn't want. 

"Here, take her." Bruce all but pushed Duela into Slade's arms, he closed them around her in silence and let the Bat brace his kid. Grant didn't say it but the grateful glance he gave Bruce worded it all, he leaned so heavily on his elder that it made Bruce wonder how he managed to support his weight at all on his own. His injuries were, in short,  _horrendous_ , and though he'd seen it with his own eyes, Bruce was finding it hard to associate Jason as capable of doing this to someone.

That little kid he almost scared to death by accident shouldn't be able to do this.

And here they were. 

Jason didn't send his men to hunt them down before they were out of sight and it suggested that he intentionally let them go. Why he would do that remained a mystery but as of now, Bruce had too many questions ravaging his brain to focus on the immediate one. Jason mentioned Dick and how rumour had it he died.... Jason did it, didn't he? He killed Dick? His stomach churned, the bitter tang of bile filled his mouth to admit what he already knew was the truth.

His expression was grim, how could it not be? Bruce came out of his extremely troubled thoughts only to wrap his arm tighter around Grant's waist when the kid stumbled, coughing up red spots, and finally getting a concerned glance from the man responsible for his existence. Except Slade didn't say anything, not even as Bruce paused to let Grant catch his breath, and it may have gone a long way if Slade had uttered a simple _are you okay?_

He didn't. Didn't say anything. Given how disturbingly unsurprised Grant was when being strangled and having his neck broken by his father, not to mention just  _taking_  the brunt of that uncalled for verbal lashing, this appeared to be depressingly common for them. Bruce prayed an onlooker had never made the same assumptions of him and his children.

They were at a temporarily safe distance from Jason's lair and his militia, no signs that they were being followed, and that alone screamed red flags. Jason wasn't done with them, not by a long shot. They had to get further and rethink this.

"C'mon, son. Up you get." Bruce straightened Grant, propping the teenager against himself yet again and slotting a supportive arm around him. Constantly, Slade was supervising them, clearly at unease with Bruce's proximity to his offspring and the reason was unclear. The merc really couldn't decide if he loved his children or wanted to berate them for something that was out of their control and in no way their fault. Interesting how Slade immediately threw caution to the wind when Grant's life was about to be ended but proceeded to blame him for it. 

" _Please_  adopt me." Grant grumbled,  voice hoarse after God knows how many hours Jason made him scream for.

"I think you're too old for that." Bruce replied, humouring the still somewhat delirious teenager's choice of conversation so he could better ignore that Grant's blood was beginning to seep through his kevlar. It was warm and oh-so-sticky. Delightful.

"We can pretend I'm not."  He coughed again, blowing away a bead of bleach as it rolled down his nose. The dark colour of his hair was a faded memory of the past, pigment burned away by the corrosives to three shades lighter and counting. When he washed it, Bruce wouldn't be surprised if it came out blond.

"I don't think your parents would like that."

Grant shrugged, none too bothered.

"Fuck 'em."

* * *

 

 

Hmm.... okay. Alright. No, this wasn't a problem, Jason could work through this. So what if Batman and Deathstroke were working together? Who cared that they stopped him from killing Duela and Grant? Not him. He didn't care. Y'know why? Because this wasn't a problem.  It was hardly an inconvenience. 

Despite his assurances to himself, Jason chewed at his lip over these worrisome new developments. He stepped into the lab, hands behind his back, gaze furrowed on the ground, working over how he was going to destroy his enemies. He wasn't particularly bothered over Batman thinking they were familiars, it was a simple mind game. Before that master class headshot, Dick played similar games with his almost believable 'let me help yous' and 'I don't want to hurt yous'.  They both ignored one very specific detail, they couldn't hurt Jason. No one could lay a finger on him without losing an arm. 

Although failing the mission, the Superman clone had dutifully returned, silent and watching Sasha as she worked on a morbid bit of patchwork stitching, sitting on the edge of the opening to the red stained glass cell. Humming a sweet little song to herself, kicking her feet, she pulled the needle through the pieces of inked skin she carved off Ravager's body. Grant had enough tattoos for an A4 sized quilt, one draped over her lap in a bloody wet mess.

Wary, Jason wasn't sure what should be going through his head when he noticed what Sasha was up to. He wasn't disgusted or disapproving, he'd just never taught her that, which meant it was her very own brainchild. 

Good fucking god, kids were fucked up.... Jason might love it. Also.... that might be a plan brewing up in his mind.

Her head perked up the moment she saw him, Sasha smiled broadly. There were stars in her eyes, as prominent as the cooling blood smeared across her. 

* * *

 

"Joseph, this idea is.... un-good." That was an observation Cassandra had made more than once but Joey was reluctant - nay,  _determined_  not to listen. He was her friend, of course, she would be his back-up in a place as dangerous as Gotham had become, he didn't even have to ask. But as he flew over the wall surrounding the city, encased by his flickering green aura of energy, and Cassandra held onto his hand for the ride, she couldn't help but wish they were anywhere but here.

This place... it was bad. It was evil. She could feel it from the moment her feet touched the ground. The air was thick and heavy with the stench of copper, so strong she tasted it. The doubt and hopelessness, the misery and pain of the occupants hit her from all sides. It was strong, foreboding as if a wicked God cursed the land for miles. It made Cassandra queasy, she'd always been more in tune to emotion than others around her and the raw overpowering sadness and haunting silence of this city made her sway and want to tear up. 

" _You don't have to come with me, Cass_." Joey's artificially-automated voice filled her head through the earpiece, connected via Bluetooth from his subvocal mic. It sounded flat and tinny. 

They'd always found it to be a common denominator and something to bond over that talking was difficult. Joey was mute, Cassandra had a shaky - at best - grip on language. Sign was an easy way for both of them to communicate. Though, with the dark of night, it was currently impossible.

" _But this place has swallowed up my family - my brother, my sister, my dad. And I need to find them._ " Landing, Joey walked with a brisk pace ahead of her and Cassandra jogged to keep up, gravel crunching underfoot and making it even more known just how silent and empty Gotham was. If she didn't know any better, she'd say the people were hiding. And she didn't know better...

" _What if they're hurt? What if - what if they're dead_?" Joey raked his hand back through his wind-blown blond curls, eyes wide with worry behind his mask. 

Something in the city groaned in unease and unsettled, Cassandra caught Joey's hand, fingers lacing around his and giving him a comforting squeeze. She knew how much his family meant to him and their radio silence over the past months was driving him insane with concern. It was inevitable that he would come to the place capes were hunted for sport, his own health and safety be damned when it was for the people he loved. 

"We will find them." Cassandra promised. Joey hummed a quiet acknowledgement. Neither could confirm nor deny whether that was true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's to daddy issues that totally aren't me projecting *raises big bubbling glass of 100% pure angst* Cheers. 
> 
> Next time, we explore Jason's biological parents a bit since we might have wondered at some point why anyone would leave a newborn at Joker's front step? Is there a genetic factor to why Jason is like this? It all has relevance.... in the end.


	6. A Wolf In Vigilante's Clothing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Who is this? Who are you?" Cass demanded, a protective arm wrapping around Joey's while she stared Nightwing down as if he was the enemy. Her katana was in her free hand, just in case she had to use it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The intention was to explore the past a little more, but holy bologna, there was no time, not with how much I wanted to write a Joey segment. Sorry, my dudes, I'll do better in the future.
> 
> Quick Joey's powers recap if you don't know 'cause it might get confusing if you don't: When eye contact's made, he can posses anyone to do anything except speak, unless they're senseless when he takes control. He can also fucking FLY and has that handy-dandy Wilson regeneration going for him. And he's fucking ADORABLE?! WHAT?! Sorry, Grant....

"Bizarro, I want you to fly over Gotham until you find those people we fought earlier. Kill them or bring them back alive, but  _especially_  kill Grant. Annoying  _bitch_...." Jason muttered the last while with skilful and limber hands, he worked ribbons into Sasha's freshly brushed hair.

Brow furrowing, the clone tipped his confused head. It was a stupid creature but it understood language to the point where Jason knew he wasn't wasting words on it.

"Which one am Gr...  _Grant_?"

"The  _hot_  one." That... That was the first sentence that came to mind. Jason could have stopped there with the description. He could have.

"Creamy smooth skin, most beautiful shade of light caramel you've  _ever_  fucking seen.  _Intoxicating_  eyes. You know what a husky dog is? It's the same shade of pale blue, like fire inside ice, so wild and impious. And those goddamn  _abs_ , perfect,  _lean_.... Like, turn-guys-gay kinda body on 'im.... hmm, I almost wish I hadn't drenched him in bleach and cut those sultry tats off. I mean, he's still very beddable,  _very_  fuckable, but... I dunno, lost part of the attraction, I guess? But the perfectly flat belly makes up for it, though. Like  _fuck_...." He might have lost himself in lusting after his ex-BFF but snapped back to reality with the confused glance Sasha sent him. In her eyes, there was also an undertow of accusation for the cursing but didn't she know it was hard to stay PG when thinking about that particular Wilson? 

"He's basically a walking wet-dream, a'ight? Fucking  _gorgeous_. Look for a brunet -  _possibly_  blond, depending on how well the bleach worked." Grant had always,  _always_  had an issue with his blue eyes because they looked like Slade's. He didn't like anything about himself that reminded him of his daddy, wouldn't it bother him to have the same shade of hair? Anything to make him not want to dwell in his own skin. Torture comes in many forms, you see.

Despite his brief lapse into appreciating the Wilson boy a little too much, Jason wanted Grant in particular, to die. Just since he hated failing to get the job done on the first go. Hot didn't mean he got to live.

Besides, it'd be a nice instigator for that daft merc Deathstroke to go for the beast's throat if his son was ripped limb-from-limb in front of him. And by a Superman clone, no less. He wouldn't stay on the down low after that and show Jason exactly where he and the Bat were.

Yes, the Hood was fucking brilliant. He knew it. And his schemes didn't end there. No sir. In fact, phase two was-

"Jay, why's your blond hair gone?" Sasha asked when she couldn't bear the question anymore and looked in puzzlement at his now solid black locks. Just some rinsable dye that took away the distinct white, he'd revert it back once it had served its purpose.

"You see, Sash, you and I are going out in a bit. I gotta blend in, I need a slightly different look."

"Oh..." Slowly, she nodded without properly getting it. Never mind, she didn't need the nitty-gritty.

"Is that why you're wearing that?" She gave the black and blue kevlar shirt a gesture and Jason responded with a bob of his head, fixing the last ribbon into her tangled tresses. There was indeed a reason he was clad in a way that meant a faded blue V ran from his fingertips, up his arms and joined ends above his chest. A domino mask would complete the look and mwah, no one would tell the difference. Except for the people who mattered.

The people who didn't matter, Jericho and Black Bat, for example, didn't have enough brain cells to tell a Hood from a bluebird. Gotham was his, many neglected the fact that few things happened in it without his knowledge. Including the arrival of capes who thought they went unnoticed. 

Bizarro could go distract the parents while Jason gave them a really fucking good reason to skip town.

* * *

 

Bruce's lip was bloody from biting down on it for the extended period that he tried to keep his hands still. With a damp rag, he dabbed at the big messy gash splitting open the back of Duela's head. He couldn't believe Jason did this. Her hair stuck to the wound, grape red strands matted to raw muscle and wet tissue, a tiny pink part of bone visible beneath it all. Her breathing was low, almost nonexistent, comatose and Bruce kept it to himself, but he didn't think she was coming out of it. Not without proper medical attention. And they didn't have it to offer.

 Slade knew that too but his son... well, he wasn't quite in his right mind enough to draw the on-the-nose conclusion.

They'd found an old burnt-out safe house for temporary cover, belonging to neither of them. In fact, this was Dick's old HQ, now a charred and blackened apartment with no signs of recent life. Thankfully, any sentimental bits his eldest might have kept here had been destroyed when one or other bomb went off. It made it easier to focus when the painful past wasn't hankering him to linger on it.

".... You held back." Slade's voice broke the silence, distant when returning from the depths of his own thoughts. Arms crossed, he loomed over Grant and watched him like it was the most important thing in the world.

Understandably exhausted, Grant had found a safe nook in the living room corner to curl up in and sleep some. His knees were pulled to his chest with no inches to spare, hugging them and his face was turned away. If he didn't get any rest, his healing factor would eat up every morsel of energy he had left and cause more harm than good. Wounds bandaged up and padded with gauze, spots of fresh blood budded through. A large portion of his hair was blond, thanks to Jason pouring bleach over him. You had to wonder why he did that.

"You held back and you didn't kill Hood." Slade turned to face Bruce, finally looking away from the captive stare he held his son in.

Oh crap. So the merc noticed, huh? Noticed that Batman had clearly pulled his punches because he didn't want to hurt Jason. Any seasoned professional would have seen it, his act was transparent.

"What if that son-of-a-bitch killed my boy while you were busy mollycoddling him?" Slade's features set like cement into a hard glare, scowling deeper than was his usual neutral every-day leer.

Bruce gave a low exhale. Was he supposed to tell  _Deathstroke_  he had a history with the man who killed his daughter and tortured his son three quarters to death? The only thing that would bring him was more distrust than he was already dealing with.

"Jas -  _Hood_  knows something about what happened to Nightwing." He replied when he thought he had the right words. Lower lip stiffening, Slade's eye narrowed but he gave a curt nod and gruff hum. So he accepted that? Well, he knew Bruce was originally here because of Dick. Although, the mercenary did add a dark,

"Next time we see that bitch, I'm putting my fist through his head. I don't care what he knows about your kid."

Bruce didn't respond to that announcement, instead focused his attention on trying to get Duela comfortable on the partly charred couch. There was nothing he could do to change Slade's mind about that, he would do what he wanted and Bruce needed to get answers out of Jason before he did. Answers for everything. What did he do to Dick? What did he do to  _himself_? The Bat hadn't seen him since-

"Oh my fucking god!" With a sharp breathless gasp, Grant came out of his restless fever sleep with a violent jerk and kicked his father in the face. Whack. Slade's jaws flew shut on his tongue, getting thrown back and by then, Grant had already bounced up to his feet. He snatched his sword from where it leaned up against the wall and darted for the door; Bruce and Slade both sprung up to stop him. The Bat caught his shoulder and spinning him around to meet his wide husky eyes, realised in confusion that Grant was full on panicking. He'd reopened the bite-marks on his lips, blinking rapidly and breathing uneven.

"Where the hell are you going?" Slade demanded past his bruised jaw, hands viced around his son's forearms and Grant must have known it was futile to try breaking free. That information nugget didn't stop the kid from giving it his best solid pulls.

"Get the fuck off me, Slade. I have to go. I need to - to find-"

Slade took his face in between his palms, aligning their gazes, his own calm one forcing his teenager to seek some semblance of placidity from the wreck of whatever was making him panic like this.

"What's wrong? Talk to me, lad."

Heavily, Grant swallowed down the ball of jumbled up words he'd not been able to get out.

"The - the cherub. Joseph -  _Joey_. The kid's in Gotham and we gotta find him before Jason does."

"What? How do you-"

"I just  _do_ , dad." Grant snapped, urgent, giving his arm a firm yank.

"He's my little brother,  _I know_. We need to find him or someone else will."

Slade stared at him. Stared and tried to pick apart the tapestry for threads of dishonesty but... Nothing. It made no sense that Grant would magically have that insight, his powers ended at enhanced strength and durability, but he wasn't lying. Slade could see that in his boy's eyes, clear as day.

And if there was even a fucking  _chance_  that Joseph had somehow found his way to this hell hole, they weren't taking it. Fuck no.

"C'mon," Slade stepped by his kid, grabbing the sword strapped to Grant's back and lifting it over his head because it wasn't actually his. No, it belonged to Deathstroke, Ravager's was still somewhere inside Hood's walls.

Slade shouldered the blade.

"Can you watch Duela?" Grant asked Wayne on the way out, the man agreed with a nod and told them to call should they run into Jason again. He wanted an exclusive audience with the little warmonger. There was something there that went beyond Nightwing, but Slade couldn't be bothered to ask questions. He needed to go find his other boy, the importance of that task automatically made it doable for him and Grant to work together.

But hold on.

Slade put a barrier of an arm across his son's chest when he tried to step out the door and was treated to a confused glance from him.

"Suit. Mask. You aren't going  _anywhere_  like that." He was stern, very much so. Had Grant perhaps not noticed the Ravager uniform hadn't magically regrown the top half? His chest and abdomen, not to mention entire neck and fucking  _face_ , were exposed for anyone to take aim at. Did he want to acquire a horrendous amount of damage  _again_? Stupid kid. Definitely his mother's offspring.

"Jason has it but it doesn't matter. If we just get Joey-" Again, he tried to get past but walked straight into the hands that closed around his shoulders. Without so much as a grunt, Slade lifted him a foot off the ground with the utmost ease and walked back the meters of distance they had to the opening.

Wayne was watching them.

"Dad, this is fucking stupid! Put me  _down_."

"No suit and you're not coming with." Slade gruffly explained while Grant did his god all to rid himself of his father's grip. His teeth were bared, he shoved at Slade in a useless attempt to get him to let go. Uncaring of his efforts, the mercenary grabbed the nearby metallic coat rack and went on with his lecture while bending it around his kid, pinning his arms to his sides.

"We both know you're going to die without iron plates and four feet of kevlar and then when you're dead, who's your mother going to be pissed at?" He jerked the coat rack tight with the last part of his sentence. Effective immediately, Grant couldn't move his arms until his strength returned enough to free himself. He kicked at Slade but like everything his eldest did, it was a complete waste of time.

"She won't fucking mind. You  _know_  that." Grant snapped when he momentarily stopped squirming for freedom. He wasn't getting it. Dumb brat.

"And I need to go make sure Joseph  _doesn't_  die, which I cannot do if I'm here, arguing with  _you_. Do you  _want_  your brother dead, Grant?" Hands on his hips, Slade's glare narrowed on him. He was met with an equally pissed off expression but the protesting ended there and a good thing too. He killed one of his siblings already, Grant really had to do  _everything_  he could to protect the remaining one.

Gaze becoming downcast, Grant pinched the corner of his lip between his teeth, right by the piercing that hadn't had a ring through it in months. His eyes were turning dark and sulky.

" _Fine_." He muttered past his clenched jaw.

Finally letting up the muteness game, Wayne rose from his spot on the edge of the couch and came over.

"Your father's right, kid. You shouldn't be going even if you had your suit, you're not fully recovered." He commented, no doubt he'd held that in this whole while and waited for the opportunity to voice his opinion.

Hissing quietly through his teeth, Slade winced when Grant  _glared_  at Wayne, fire and murder and poisons all forced into one sideways look.  _That_  expression he got from his mother, Slade had seen it many a time. Most recently before a toaster struck him in the face.

"Just...  Just find Joey." Grant's reluctant exhale was the universal sign of surrender. Good thing he knew to shut the hell up and listen when the matter was urgent enough.

The bent coat rack wasn't coming off, though.

"Wayne," Slade jerked his head toward the door.

"With me. The boy can watch his friend alone. He won't leave her unattended so we can be sure he'll stay put." That time Slade met his brat's scowl head on and could tell that he'd read Grant's mind and simultaneously put a stop to his scheming.

Idiot kid.

* * *

 

 _Goddammit_. Huffing, Joey blew a blond curl off his brow and gave the city a frustrated visual sweep. He tightened his hands on his hips, scowling through his mask at the ground far below his hovering form.

Thus far, he hadn't found a trace of Wilson outside of himself here, which was not that surprising because Rose liked the down-low and dad kept covert unless it didn't serve him... but  _Grant_ , he was notorious for causing a scene. If everyone within a thousand-mile radius wasn't aware of the Ravager's existence then he would change that. It was difficult not to find big brother and yet here Joey now was, completely alone, save for Cassandra... but she wasn't here right now. They split up to search the Narrows, a small enough portion of Gotham for him to be able to hear it if she screamed. 

She wouldn't. Cassandra wasn't an easy one to get the drop on. If anything, it was him who'd end up crying soundlessly to her while bleeding to death in a gutter with rats eating him. 

Joey was busy trying to remember the names of the various bars his brother all but lived at while in Gotham when a sudden burst of sound derailed his thought process. Screams and thuds, noises generally associated with a fight. 

Like a bolt of green lightning, Joey darted through the air in the direction the noise came from; a nearby alley. He'd been right with his initial thought, a fight was in progress, a group of thugs aggressively beating on a single guy, more specifically.  He was backed into a wall, holding his own to the bare minimum of the word after fuck knows how much damage he took. He was fighting hurt and badly so, barely blocking punches, swaying and ready to collapse if the wind hit him wrong.

The blue V on his chest and domino mask said it all; he was a cape. And not just any cape, Joey realised with an out-of-place inner fangirl squeal, it was Nightwing.  Fucking  _Nightwing_. Apparently, the rumours of his death were exaggerated. Wouldn't be soon, however, if he didn't step in to lend a hand.

A second of eye contact thrown to Joey by the thug with a crowbar and he took possession of the man's body,  his control surging in like a tidal wave eliminating his host's willpower.  The crowbar turned against them,  smashing the arm a thug held a mean looking baseball bat in. He screamed, as did his cohorts when it didn't take Joey half a minute to floor them all with swift strikes in just the right spots. 

Soon panting while he stood in the middle of a sea of senseless men, Joey glanced over at Nightwing, staring at him in confusion and wariness, the escrima stick hanging from his loose fist ready to use. The guy was hurt worse than Jericho had initially assumed, he wasn't standing straight, muscles shaking slightly from the pain with blood blooming in dark patches across his suit. 

"Who're you?" He defensively demanded, a hand on the wall to brace himself. His breathing was uneven, Joey couldn't unhear it. In response, Joey held up a finger for him to wait a moment and zipped back to his own body, hovering overhead. When he wasn't home, his Ikon suit surrounded it with a protective energy shield to make sure no one attacked it while he wasn't able to fight back.  His ex installed the shield for him. A very sweet gesture. 

Once he was in his god intended place again, Joey gracefully descended back to Nightwing, landing a respectful two meters away. He was doing his best to play it cool and gag the part of him that had been drooling after Nightwing since grade school. But dammit, why'd the guy have to be so fucking pretty? Even with his domino mask obscuring the entirety of his face, Joey was having an inner war with his bisexuality, his gay side was threatening to destroy his straight one.

 _Focus, Joseph._ _FOCUS_ _._

" _Are you alright_?" He asked, remotely changing his automated voice from robotic to a more natural sounding tone. He didn't want his love obsession to think he was some computerised robot weirdo. 

"You're...  _Jericho_ , right?" Nightwing ignored Joey's question with his own and almost killed the kid by doing it. Nightwing knew his name...  _Nightwing_  knew  _his_  name! Good thing his mask covered his face entirely or his stupid wide grin would've been on full display.

" _Yeah, that's me_ ," Joey bobbed his head up and down enthusiastically, completely forgetting the 'play it cool' thing. 

 _"But you're hurt.  Can I_ -"  _strip you down to thoroughly examine the damage, specifically around your abs and pecs? All for your sake, of course._

"- _Help you out? You need to get somewhere out of the open while Hood's goons are running around_."

Nightwing gave a subtle nod, limping past and Joey kicked himself inwardly. Why did he think  _Batman's_  right hand wouldn't have put that together already? God, he was failing so stupidly at not looking dumb. 

Turning on his heel, he tracked Nightwing's laboured movement to a big green dumpster against the alley wall, asking himself all number of questions when his idol knelt and extended a hand behind it. There was a foot of space between the trash and the wall, Nightwing gave some soft coaxing words and his best smile with a broken lip.

Hesitantly, a child crept out inch by inch, a little redheaded girl hunched over in fear. She fumbled with her fingers nervously, twisting them in ways that couldn't be painless. From where Joey stood, his first glance made her look normal but as the angle changed an inch, he couldn't help the fright. Her face was  _badly_  disfigured, covered in thick bulky scars and smooth leathery skin. 

Joey mentally punched it into himself to not look horror-struck, especially not when Nightwing rotated back to him with the girl's hand in his. The child trusted him, blindly, it was obvious. It was... sweet. Joey imagined it wasn't difficult to fully trust Nightwing, though, or completely lose yourself in ogling at his arms... he was younger than Joey had expected but he chose to overlook that fact.

" _Who's this_?" He gestured to the girl.

"This is Scarlet. She was separated from her family when that bastard Hood swamped the city." Nightwing glanced at Scarlet, she gave a shy smile and he returned a pearly kind one. Fuck, why was this guy so dreamy? Why could he not understand that Joey was having a hard time thinking clearly right now? Subconsciously, Joey's hand moved to rub the back of his slender neck, blowing his cheeks out. Oh boy...

"She's my partner until we find her parents. Ain't that right, Scarlet?" 

Enthusiastically, Scarlet nodded. There were stars in her eyes when she looked up at him. 

"We just fought a bunch of baddies on the way here!" Delighted, excited to share, she exclaimed to Joey, her hand never leaving Nightwing's.  

"Jericho here gave us a hand with the last ones, Scarlet. Let's give credit where it's due." 

"Oh. Right." Scarlet turned to Joey so fast it gave him whiplash. 

"I like your hair, Jericho, it's so yellow and curly - like noodles!"

" _Uh... thank you_." Self-conscious fingers swept back through Joey's hair. It... it didn't look like noodles, did it?

"Joseph!" That was Cassandra's voice. Joey caught a glimpse of black and gold before the short girl ran up to him, stood by him and shot Nightwing a suspicious, very dark look. The glare didn't suit her sweet round face and gentle chocolatey eyes but somehow pulled off terrifying.

"Who is this?  _Who_  are you?" Cass demanded, a protective arm wrapping around Joey's while she stared Nightwing down as if he was the enemy. Her katana was in her free hand, just in case she had to use it. 

" _Cass, this is Nightwing. He's fricken' Batman's ex-protege_."  

Chewing on her lip, Cass gave the love of Joey's life a dekko before returning her sights to him and she did not get on the bandwagon. Just her expression proclaimed it.

" _Nightwing_  is dead. That is  _not_  Nightwing." She aggressively insisted and the vigilante in question stepped in with a calm,

"That's a rumour and I don't mind keeping it. Keeps Hood off my back." He explained and it was reasonable, Joey was 100% on his side - and  _not_  only because he was smoking,  _okay_? He... was more than his amazing, beautiful, legendary, all-consuming facial structure and tight muscular frame. 

"But if you're uncomfortable with me," Nightwing went on and his low smoky voice was fucking with Joey's head, big time.

"You, I, Scarlet and Jericho can go our separate ways. I need to find Batman, anyway." With that and no reply, he moved past, pulling Scarlet along and she nearly skipped. 

" _Wait - wait_." Joey caught Nightwing's arm in an almost desperate fete to get his attention back. Quirking an inquisitive brow, Nightwing looked to him over his shoulder.

" _I'm looking for my dad and the rest of my family. Maybe we can help each other if you're also missing your dad_?" Taking a step away from the pink rosy tinted haze, it was practical for capes to stick together in this situation. Hood had a whole goddamn militia while his protesters were few and far apart.  They needed everyone they could get if they wanted any chance of taking the lunatic down. 

But before Nightwing could reply, Cassandra grabbed Joey's wrist and dragged him stumbling away several meters to a place where they could converse privately.

"He is  _bad_ , Joseph." She angrily whispered, breath hissing. "I feel it. He wants to hurt you. Do  _not_  trust him."

Feeling Nightwing's eyes on them, Joey thought about how ridiculous that was.

" _He's one of the best masks there is_."

"Have you  _met_  him? Can you say for sure that  _that_  is him?" Cass gestured to Nightwing, still observing them in silence and Joey couldn't help the sense of running smack-bang into a wall. She... had a point. If there was one thing he'd learned about Cassandra during their lengthy friendship, it was that her intuition was always on point. She was never wrong about people.

Joey trusted her more than he adored Nightwing.  A sudden chill crept down his spine when it began to dawn. He glanced over at the man; he was standing straight up and with ease, as if he'd never been wounded at all. If that really wasn't Nightwing, then who....

"Why the hell are you not in school?!" Joey almost jumped out of his skin when who else but his father landed heavily a meter away. The kid stumbled back from the colossal fright, it was up to Cassandra to catch him before he tripped. 

" _I - I'm sorry, dad,_ " He instinctively whined, completely forgetting the situation in the face of dad being pissed at him. Yes, he should be in school, especially with finals coming up. He should be in school, revising, studying, going through his books and packing his brain with ultimately useless information. 

" _It's just that you and Rose and Grant, you all vanished and - wait, why don't you make Grant go to school_?" 

"Because I don't want to waste the effort and this is not the ideal time to have that conversation,  _Joseph_."  With the statement, Slade took his son around the wrist, about to lock him up in the nearest wardrobe he could find to keep him safe until this shit storm cleared up... when he noticed the other present party.  He might be clad as Nightwing, but that was so clearly Red Hood and it made the mercenary's blood boil to know he was within hand's reach of his child.  _Again_.  

Wayne appeared behind Hood, they had him surrounded but the teenage lunatic/mass murderer had no ounce of worry in him. He smirked crookedly, smugly, and moved his arms out to his sides in a shrug.

"Oh bother. What  _ever_  shall I do? Batman, Deathstroke, Black Bat  _and_  Jericho, all against little lonely moi? Heck, I know when I'm beat."  Tauntingly, he put his arms up. God, he had such a punchable face.  Slade's fists clenched when he released his youngest son. Oh, this bitch was gonna get it. 

Lower lip stiffening, Wayne was staring at the Nightwing suit on Hood with a mixture of emotions that couldn't be named with the cover of his cowl. 

There was a disfigured little girl trying desperately to pull her hand out of Hood's; the maniac had a grip of iron on the poor thing, relentless and his grin split broader when they visibly became disturbed by him. There were tears spilling down her face, she was whimpering and pleading with him but he didn't pay her any heed. Fucking sick monster. What did he want her for? 

"Jason,  _let_  her go." Wayne growled with authority to back him up. Maybe the suit was a trigger, it looked a helluva lot like the Bat wanted to punch Hood. Good, about time. Slade wasn't sure if it was a hero thing that made him hold back earlier but this thing, this  _Red Hood_ , there was nothing salvageable about him.

"Oh, alright." Hood caved with his smirk prominent, letting go of the child and she backed away from him, terror alive in her eyes. 

"But only since you guys are gonna have your hands full." 

They didn't have to ask what he meant, or even ponder it for that matter,  by now Slade recognised the shadow of the Kryptonian clone when it cast over them. Lightning was comparable to how fast he grabbed his son to yank him from harm's way; the asphalt he'd been standing on smashed into a thousand tiny bits as Bizarro's weight hit it. Daintily, Joey's friend leapt aside and circled Hood to join up with Batman. He glanced at her with familiarity amidst concern and relief, how unsurprising that they knew one another. 

Arm tight around Joey's midriff, Slade picked him up like he was weightless and dodged a vicious right hook from the clone, the wall behind crumbling to dust. Fuck. This damn thing again. It seemed to be mostly interested in smashing Joey and why the hell? What fucked up instructions had Hood given it? 

Cassandra and Wayne went for Hood while Slade and his kid were left with this fucking clone. Yay, equality. This situation wouldn't be a problem in the least if he wasn't so dreadfully worried Joey would get hurt in the tango.

" _Dad lemme go_!" Joey squirmed and wriggled and succeeded in getting what he wanted when he flew up, out of Slade's grip and as his father had feared, Bizarro darted right after with murder on his mind.

The mercenary grit his teeth. Great.  

As he raced up the fire escape to get to the roof in the hopes of catching Joey, he caught a glimpse of Hood running off and the Bats flying in pursuit. They better kill him. Slade was killing them both if Hood came out of this alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joey unknowingly lusting over the guy lusting over his brother... seems up to standards here. I'm really feeling my gayness today, it might show just a tiny bit ;D
> 
> If anyone out there has siblings, I think it's a safe bet there are, you ever just KNOW something? Like, for example, your little brother is about to get jumped by your ex-best friend and playmate? It's instinct, my swamp monkeys, us older siblings particularly just have random bouts of it sometimes, y'know? XD


	7. Resent and Remember

Wind howling in his ears and tossing his hair like a salad, Joey spun through the air to narrowly escape a blast of ice from the clone's eyes. It grazed his shoulder and left little frozen crystals on his suit. They were pretty but no time for admiration at the moment. There was an angry Kryptonian cannonballing after him and an even angrier dad, apparently Joey was supposed to stay at his side? He was literally the most powerful person in his family, he had all their abilities and then some, he's pretty sure he's capable of protecting himself.

That being said, Joey nearly broke his neck flying into a wall in the effort to dodge the clone. He got some hits in but for the most part, it was all dancing through the sky to save himself a broken everything. He intended to let Bizarro run his energy out first before he tried anything real.

" _Joseph_!" Dad angrily yelled at him, launching himself off the near building and onto Bizarro's back. Wrapping a powerful arm around its neck, dad got it in a headlock, thrown this way and that by it trying to toss him but he wasn't letting go. They had to be forty feet above ground level and steadily climbing.

" _Dad, I got this_!" Joey insisted, frustrated at his father's intervention. Dammit, he could do this  _alone_.

"The only thing you're getting is a ruler across the wrist -  _ngh_!" Swinging an arm behind its back, Bizarro grabbed Slade around the neck and in a wild display of raw strength, hurled the mercenary through the air. A fall from this altitude would mean a shattered skeleton, even for a meta, Joey swan dived to catch Slade by his wrist. Grunting, the kid's arms were almost pulled from their sockets when his hands locked around dad, turning his direction rapidly upward to save them both a face full of asphalt.

" _Ngh_." Joey uselessly kicked his legs, struggling for seconds to regain lift. Goddamn, dad really was all those two-hundred and twenty pounds of muscle, wasn't he?

Teeth grit, Slade glanced up at him, taking immediate note of the strain on his son. Like this, they couldn't be more vulnerable. The next  blast of ice was proof of that. Joey yelped when Slade dragged him down by the ankle, shielding him from the shot with his own body. That got him a back encased with ice. And then they were in freefall again.

Joey struggled to liberate himself from his father's arm around him, he couldn't fly with it there, and Slade, aware of that, attempted to release his son, yanking at his limb but it was frozen all the way around. 

" _Goddammit_." Slade ground his jaws, fumbling for his dagger while they were spinning, spinning, spinning closer to the ground. Every second brought them nearer to becoming a fine red paste on the asphalt.

Joseph was beginning to panic, he could feel it in the way the kid was squirming, and for a moment, the mercenary found himself wishing he had Ravager with him in place of his brother. Joey was everything you could ask for in a son, Grant was everything in a soldier. He should be, he'd been taught to kill at six. The lad knew how to keep cool, no matter the situation.

Slade managed to steer their descent nearer to the buildings, plunging the blade into the brickwork when they were close enough. The jolt almost tore his fucking arm off but his frozen one kept Joey safely held to his chest, he couldn't drop the kid if he wanted to. But he managed to save them, from splattering that is.

Pinned to the building wall, they were out in the open, Bizarro was careering towards them with murderous intent, at this angle it would hit Joey before it hit Slade; his mind was  _racing_  for a way out of this. Jumping would result in broken legs, they couldn't climb up, Joey couldn't fly for as long as they were stuck and three seconds before they were crushed by the freight train of a Kryptonian.

Turns out, he didn't have to find the resolve himself. As if summoned, Ravager appeared on the ledge overhead, taking a running jump off it at the clone. The sun caught the metal of his sword, he rotated himself through the air in an axis, gathering the force of momentum to land Bizarro a bone breaking blow.  _Good lad..._

The clone screamed, in anger and pain, swinging a bludgeon of an arm at Grant. Somehow, through some once in a lifetime dexterity, the boy dodged it, mid-flight. He couldn't fly, that was a given, but Grant didn't seem to care. He threw all common sense and caution to the wind, dropping the sword in favour of a gun, quickly whipped from his holster. Bang! Bang! Bang!

Slade's heart stopped when the clone and his son alike plunged from the sky, grappling with one another. Blood flew after, he couldn't tell whose it was but Bizarro was visibly lagging. How... How did that damn boy lay damage past its iron thick hide?

At the speed everything was happening, there wasn't a chance to spot many fine details other than Grant wasn't fighting tactically; he was fighting angry. He beat the clone's head back with more punches than should fit into five seconds. The ground was dangerously close and rapid, Slade hit his frozen arm painfully hard into the bricks of the apartment. Again. Again. Again until the ice began cracking off and he was able to let go of Joey. He all but threw the kid in Grant's direction.

"Catch your brother!" He ordered, unable to do it himself with the lack of wings and with a quick nod, Joey catapulted after. Fifteen feet and they would be scraping clone and Ravager apart from a bloody mess, Jericho kicked more speed into himself. The wind was like sandpaper on his skin, deafening him at the speed it zipped by, but he focused solely on getting close enough to do what he needed to. Holding his breath, Joey narrowly got his fingers around his brother's ammo belt across his chest, braking just in time to save them both but he'd be lying if he said it wasn't a fucking close call. They both jerked from the violent stop, Grant muffled a noise of pain when the belt bruised his ribs.

Bizarro struck the ground with a crash and cloud of dust erupting from shattered asphalt, Grant must've wounded it severely enough to disable reflexes that would have let it pull up.

Chewing on his lip, Joey tightened his arms around his brother, feeling the heavy rise and fall of his chest, the rapid pound of his heart through his armour. Grant's face was hidden by his mask but even without seeing what his expression was, Joey could sense the rage buzzing inside him. It scared him.

"Get the  _fuck_  off me, cherub." Came the low mutter and then Grant broke his grip, opting to fall the last ten meters safely onto his feet without so much as a stumble. Joey's brows rose behind his mask. Perfect superhero landing.... Grant grabbed his fallen sword none-too-lightly and didn't say a word to either of them. 

Having broken the ice entirely, Dad jumped the rest of the distance too, only not quite as gracefully with just one arm for balance, he winced when he landed. Joey quietly floated beside him, both watching Grant. Grant snapped them a fast and vicious glare, heat radiating from behind the red lenses over his eyes.

" _Where_  the  _hell_  did Jason go?" He demanded, beyond himself with wrath and Joey could tell even Slade was taken aback by it. And that was saying something, it was fair to assume he'd witnessed his eldest pissed off more than anyone alive.

"Where did you get that suit?" Slade ignored his question and advanced closer a daring few steps once the whiplash of his son's mood passed. He shot the grounded, raggedly panting clone a glance in the crater it was in. There were bullet wounds through it, he knew of only one thing that could damage a Kryptonian clone like that.

"And  _where_  did you get red kryptonite ammo from?" He arched a snowy brow while he asked himself if he needed to get his hands on the boy to force his muscles to quit quivering in rage.

Grant tipped his chin upwards a fraction, eyes attenuating.

"Broke into one of Jason's hidden armouries, I keep a spare suit in it. He's got everythin' in there. Now  _where_  is he?"

Taking his sweet time, Slade crossed his arms, narrowing his own gaze to match his idiot brat's. He needed to tilt his head down only a little to interlock their visions. Tall stripling.

"I don't trust you not to kill yourself at the moment. You're too emotional. What happened?" He honestly wanted to know, he was as worried as he was disapproving that Grant would let this amount of weakness into the battlefield, but figures, the lad wasn't in a sharing mood. Roughly, he shouldered past and Slade let him go with a certain amount of reluctance. He bit the corner of his lip, looking after while Grant homed in on the tracks left behind by Wayne and his girl when they went after Hood.

His boy was going to kill someone, that was for sure. Slade wondered now like a few times in the past, if it was a mistake to let Joker teach Grant the fragility of human life. Joey and Rose attended regular school and they... may have turned out easier to control.

Begrudgingly, the mercenary extended a taser in his hand and shot the wires at Grant before he could get too far. Yelping, he jerked the moment they connected with his back, falling onto his knees with convulsions much like the ones he suffered when Hood had that transmitter in him. Slade didn't like to hurt his kid but this was the better alternative, as opposed to him falling into Hood's clutches again. Which he would if he got close enough.

Once he was down, Slade put the taser away and went to pick Grant up. Crouching, he carefully slid his hands behind his son's back and beneath the bend of his knees, hoisting his limp body off the floor. He gave a small groan but didn't stir more.

He wasn't as heavy as the way he carried himself might make you think, or then maybe the enhanced strength in Slade didn't feel the weight of all that muscle and metal. Quietly, he exhaled, resting Grant's head against his shoulder and adjusting his arms around him tighter. Last time he remembered carrying his eldest was when he was eight. Ten years ago. Still felt the same, though.

"Dumb kid... Can't ever keep your emotions under control, can you?" He muttered to himself.

Slade ran through his mind all the alternate reasons why Grant could be this pissed off, this desperate to spill the blood of his former playmate, and one thing would explain it; his friend, the clown girl, had to be dead. It was obviously going to happen, given the extent of her injuries, but Slade should've known Grant wouldn't be able to take it and flip out.

" _Poor thing_...." He heard Joey murmur to himself and Slade turned to see his middle child kneeling by the Superman clone, watching it with concerned eyes while he carefully laid a hand over its tenfold bigger one. Slade sighed a second time, clicking his tongue.

"Joseph, get away from that thing. It can still hurt you."

" _No, dad_ ," he raised his gaze to Slade and didn't ask why his brother was unconscious. This wasn't uncommon, exactly.

" _He's just doing what he's been told. He doesn't know it's wrong._ " Joey explained his hypothesis while he beamed his consciousness into Bizarro, leaving his own body standing by and Slade rolled his eye in silence. How many times did he need to tell Joey not to leave his body lying around like it was a candy wrapper?

In the clone, Joey pushed himself onto his feet, stepping a little clumsily out of the crater. Slade fixed him a questioning look, already prepared to tell Joey he wasn't keeping that thing and it wasn't coming home with them.

"My healing factor should fix him up, dad." Joey was talking through Bizarro's vocal cords, taking full advantage of the clone being senseless when he possessed it. A neat trick he had to his name.

"He might be able to help with Hood, who's.... am I getting this right, he's that kid Grant used to build pillow forts with?"

"I was as surprised as you to find out your brother had friends." Slade shrugged, turning on his heel and heading back in the direction they came from. They weren't doing anyone any good out here.

"That's not what I meant, dad...." Joey mumbled while he plucked his body up from the ground, hurrying after his father with it under his arm.

"Where's Rose, by the way? I haven't seen her yet." He inquired, innocently enough, glancing to his surroundings should Rose be hiding somewhere there and Slade picked up his pace in the hopes that he could avoid that question.

He knew he couldn't. Especially not when Joey quickly picked up on his hesitance and the unhappy vibe his daughter's name brought up in him.

"...  _Dad_?"

* * *

 

Dammit! Bruce almost had Jason, right between his fingers and then the deranged teenager bolted again, laughing like someone just cracked the world's funniest joke. He was enjoying being chased, he was reaping every bit of merriment from it as he sang his taunts from the rafter ties of the warehouse he lead them to. This was a trap, it had to be and Bruce never pretended he didn't know that. It was all a game for Hood, that's why he was sashaying around in Dick's uniform, all to mess with their heads. It was a clever tactic, it was definitely distracting the Bat. He kept imagining if Dick was wearing that when he died....

Beside him, Cassandra's brow was knit in frustration, teeth pinching her lip while her eyes darted in the search for Jason. He'd done his vanishing act again, but he wasn't far. He was just leading them further into the warehouse.

"Okay, stop right there!" Jason's voice ran out from the roof beams and Bruce, along with Cassie, froze, rigid in the wait for what the lunatic had planned next. Slipping a batarang free from his belt, Bruce's eye caught the flash of red up high overhead the second before Jason finally stepped back into view. He didn't have to be close to catch the boy's crooked grin and smug expression.

"Jason,  _enough_." He growled, uneagerly scanning Jason over for anyplace the batarang could cut through the kevlar. The neck and face were the most exposed but that was a high-risk area. Surely Jason wouldn't make him do it?

"It's enough when I say so." Came the response and forming a square with his indexes and thumbs, Jason extended his arms and looked through it at them, tongue rolling out the side of his mouth in focus. He was playing with them....

By now, Jason had rid himself of Dick's mask but still found himself at home disgracing the uniform. The Nightwing symbol didn't look right on him, it felt like sacrilege just to see it and do nothing.

"Get down here, Jason, and we can resolve this."

"Nah, I'd rather not." He cocked his head with a playful smirk, taking from  _Dick's_  utility belt the unmistakable shape of a detonator. 

"I don't think there's anything to resolve." His thumb teased the switch, smile only widening and only then did Bruce hear the quiet ticking coming from the length of every wall, lined with explosives. Dammit. So he hadn't been wrong to assume this was a trap?

He was about to tell Cass to get the hell out while he handled Jason, when the roof above caved with a sudden crash. All three of them threw a rapid glance towards the noise, not even  _Jason_  was expecting it. Aluminium sheeting, timbers and broken twisted metal rained down, Bruce pulled Cass into his cape to protect her from the falling debris, bouncing off the leather. Red, blue and white, the Superman clone taking its orders from Jason was in the centre of the carnage a second before it fixed its sights on the crimson hoodie. Human visual capabilities couldn't keep up with how fast Bizarro rocketed into Jason, he never would have had the time to dodge it before his leg was grabbed and he was hurled across the warehouse like a used toy.

Smash!

Bruce didn't know what he was watching when Bizarro darted past to pluck Jason from the wall crater, only to toss him violently into the next nearest solid surface. Crash. Jaws parted, the clone was panting through primordial rage, whole body tense as stone, eyes pulsating green with flickers of the same colour dancing like sparks.

"Joseph..." Cassandra whispered, peering out from the safety of the Bat's cape. Snapping out of the initial shock, Bruce broke into a run towards the two to prevent Deathstroke's son from killing Jason, only the moment he was close enough, Joey swung an arm at him. It caught him in the chest and sent him back meters while Joey picked Jason out of the hole he stomped him into. He wrapped a hand around his chest and raised him to hitting level, the painfully bright light in his eyes turning into one bigger angrier fire.

"You  _murdered_  my sister!" Joey punched Jason, whipping his whole upper body back.

"You  _tortured_  my brother!" Another punch, directly to his face and this time, there was an eruption of blood across the clone's white knuckles.

"And you turned my family on itself -  _why_?! Because you get some sick  _high_  out of it?!" The third blow fractured the wall Joey had Jason pinned to, Bruce's heart leapt into his throat with how badly Slade's son was pummelling Jason. Joey's fist was meeting slack unresponsive muscle that jolted with every connection but Jason's eyes were rolled back in his head, red running in rivers from his mouth and nose, the first hit alone was enough to incapacitate. The fourth would be a kill shot.

Bruce made to stop him - somehow - but Cassie was faster to spring between Jason, Joey, and the next would-be fatal punch. She spread her arms wide to her sides, eyes intent with urgency. 

"Joseph, do not!" She yelled at him and a second before she would have been killed too, Joey froze, fist still raised with Jason in his other hand. The clone's fingers were more than big enough to fit all the way around his chest.

"You do  _not_  kill." Cass sternly insisted, completely unafraid to be standing there in peril's reach. Bruce didn't know a lot about Joey but the fact that he was a powerful meta and  _Deathstroke's_  son was enough to make him a risk factor. He could be a world more unstable than either Wilson Bruce had already met and this display certainly suggested it might be true. Or then... he found out about his sister and this was justified. Speaking of,

" _He_  killed Rose!" Joey retorted, voice raw with emotion so heavy it was threatening to take him fully over. Despite everything, Bruce felt sympathy towards the seventeen-year-old. Jason really made a horrible mess of everything

"He made  _Grant_  do it!" The blond went on and swallowed back a mouthful of pain and sadness, taking over from the anger. There were tear streaks down his cheeks, his eyes were so wounded, even in the clone's body that was visible.

"And he  _will_  pay for that." Cassandra's assurances were so believable that Bruce feared what she had planned for Jason. Her expression was dark, whether that be because of how distraught her friend was or another reason of her own.

"But you are not your father or brother, you don't like killing because there are ways around it. Death is too good after all Hood has done." Her voice was hard with conviction, staring at Joey dead set, unafraid of the fire in his eyes, turning to flickering dull sparks as he caved. He didn't want to listen to her, he didn't want to keep from bashing Jason's head in but with a heavy, pissed off sigh, he lowered his fist. He turned to Bruce, standing a little distance behind, and tossed Jason's limp, bloody and bruised body to his feet.

"That's  _yours_ , isn't it?" He spat.

Lowering himself to his knees, Bruce didn't respond as he reached behind his back for cable ties, not that he thought restraining Jason was necessary for the next few hours. His wounds had a light green glow around them, he'd seen it before when Jason was hurt. His suit took most of the blow, he always recovered faster than he should, he'd probably walk this well-earned beating off like it was nothing.

Quietly, while fixing Jason's wrists behind his back, he looked at the kids; Cassandra was holding Joey's hand and saying something quietly to him while he had a fistful of his hair, threatening to pull it out. He was well past the point of distress at what happened to not only his sister but also his brother. Poor thing.

"Cass, why don't you and Joey go find his body and take that clone somewhere safe? I'll head back to the safehouse and if you see Slade, could you send him to find me?" Bruce half inquired, half ordered while he got off the floor, bringing Jason up with him and carrying the senseless maniac over his shoulder.

Cassie nodded obediently and Joey left with her, reluctant, clearly but he knew he needed to cool off before he broke his moral code.

With them gone, Bruce intended to go somewhere he and Jason could have some well-placed words in private.  _Before_  Slade and his  _other_  lunatic son got here.

* * *

 

Peering from behind the cover of a dumpster, Sasha watched the man with the orange and black suit leave with who she assumed were his kids, the noodly blond and the guy Jason frequently referred to as sweetheart. He stomped off and left her all alone in the clearing between alley buildings, alone save for her knife and the notion that she had no idea what she was meant to do now.

When they went out, Jason told her to act like he made her come and that he was scaring her, it was a little hard to do since Jason was the least scary thing in the world but she pulled it off okay. He said that the Bat would take pity on her and she'd be able to get close enough to sink her weapon to the hilt. Jay made certain she knew what a kill shot was and this was supposed to go smoothly. 

But it didn't. 

Sasha wasn't sure what plan B was, Jason had been so certain everything would go the way it always did; his way, that he didn't bother to come up with a counter. 

She chewed on her lip and mulled it over. She needed to find Jason again and as of now, staying here was doing her no good. With no other option that she could see, she jogged after the maniac family, keeping a safe, discreet distance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mess with Nightwing? Nyeh, you'll be fine. Mess with Ravager? You'll live. Fuck with the superdads? Home free..... NEVER fuck with the middle child. This is a life lesson. They're the dangerous ones.


	8. Forget Me Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am rather ill, there's a chance this will be an appalling garbage fire that lacks coherency. Be prepared for that.

_Solitary had nothing to offer. Absolutely nothing. Bruce mulled it over, how those people hadn't known Jason by name and when he specified, they were even more confused. They either didn't know Jason or were incredibly good at hiding all body language that said they were lying._

_It was all so muddled up it had the Bat confused, and that was not something he experienced often. He'd had Jason for a couple of weeks now and none of it was adding up. Not who he was, why he was at the toy store, whether or not he had anything at all to do with Joker. It was all a mess._

_But he would be lying if he said that was the only thing on his mind. Maybe it was because he missed Dick and having another child in the house dulled the pain of separation, but Bruce was becoming... attached to Jason. Sure, the boy didn't talk more than a few sentences and that was when the blue moon shone, and he mostly just shied around the manor or stared off into space, and yet it made everything feel more special with him there._

_That evening, Bruce watched from the kitchen window as Jason sat in the backyard, underneath a weeping willow tree that kept him dry and safe from the soft late Autumn rainfall. He was watching the sky, one arm extended to catch droplets of water in his palm as they fell. Bruce wasn't sure what he was doing but the innocent appearance of it was something he enjoyed seeing. With how crime in Gotham twisted and darkened his world, anything devoid of evil was like a blanket of pure white snow over blood-drenched streets._

_The evening was gradually becoming night, Bruce was reluctant to disturb the child's serenity but he had to out and collect him before he got a cold. The grass was wet, the rain had turned to drizzle, everything was silent with the city so far away. Jason didn't react when Bruce approached him and quickly the reason for that became clear; he was asleep. Leaning on the willow tree, beads of water rolled down his chin and dripped off his lashes,  his head was lolled onto one shoulder. Goosebumps were stretched across every inch of his skin but he wasn't shivering, no matter he was underdressed for this weather._

_His small fist was clamped around nothing, apparently, but as he neared, Bruce caught a flash of pale blue he was holding onto. It was a bunch of forget-me-nots, growing in dying patches around the tree. The delicate small flowers were crumpled up, petals bent here and there but their beautiful husky-eye blue was a breath of fresh air beside their dreary surroundings. Although he didn't understand it, Bruce gave a small smile to himself as he knelt to pick the child up._

_Jason was practically weightless next to the things the Bat hoisted and lugged around on a basis, he fit easily into the cradle of his arms.  Stirring, Jason held onto the flowers, even as he gave a sleepy mewl and pushed himself deeper into the man's broad chest. His features were scrunched up, as if he was focusing so hard on an element of a dream it made all the creases in his brow show._

_Bruce took him indoors and up the stairs to the second floor, into his bedroom but when he tried to lay Jason down on the immaculately smooth covers, the child had a fistful of his shirt and didn't relinquish his hold. He wasn't awake but he wasn't fully asleep anymore._

_"Jaylad, you gotta let go of me," Bruce said, mostly to his own ears, gently uncurling Jason's fingers from the bunch of fabric they possessed. Jason's eyelashes fluttered apart and instantly, his hands flew open, he jerked and all but threw himself back in alarm. Confusion, panic, fear, all those things flew across his features as he pulled himself away across the bed, hitting the wall with a hollow thud. He panted in shallow uneven bursts of air through his parted trembling lips, terrified for the whole ten seconds before he realised it was only Bruce, the man he'd somewhat become accustomed to. But it didn't alleviate his fear by a lot._

_Unfortunately, this wasn't uncommon. Jason frequently fell into fits of panic and terror, it was hit or miss whether or not anything could calm him._

_"You know it's just me, Jason." Bruce calmly spoke, in the way he'd learned could get through the boy's fog of trepidation. He lifted the fallen blue forget-me-nots and offered them back to Jason._

_"And you know I won't hurt you."_

_Although somewhat calmer at the assurance, Jason's frightened, wide eyes darted to the plants and hesitantly, he took them back. He held them so carefully, so tenderly, that it made Bruce think there was more behind them than just their basic beauty. Jason ran his finger along one of the silken soft petals, staring at it with so much on his mind that his thoughts were nearly loud enough to hear._

_"What do you like about them?" Bruce asked, gesturing to the flowers when Jason rapidly glanced up at him. It took him a moment to realise this was a question made for an answer, his lips moved for silent words before he got audio behind them._

_"Th - they remind me of... of something. Of someone."_

_"Who?" It was a bit of a push, but if he remembered anyone from his past, Bruce felt like he needed to know. Jason was such a blank canvas that any swatch of colour would be progress._

_"My... my friend. He  has eyes the same shade... I think."_

_"You think?"_

_"I don't remember for sure." Jason shrugged with a hopeless little sigh, body slumping slightly and his gaze landed heavily to the forget-me-nots in his hands._

_"I don't remember if he's real or I... just made him up."_

_Bruce shifted on the bed, leaning back slightly on his arm and he watched the youngster silently. Jason was clearly bothered by the gaps in his memory, Bruce was too, trust him, and although he didn't know how, he wanted to help._

_"Do you care about your friend?"_

_Inflexibly, Jason gave a jerk of a nod 'yes'._

_"I think I do. I think he means... a lot to me."_

_"Is he someone you can trust?"_

_That time, the kid's confirmation came without any hesitation at all. He fully believed he could trust blue-eyes, whether or not he existed in the real world or just in Jason's head. That alone was something._

_"I'm sure I can trust him with anything. And he can trust me. I'd never hurt him."  Despite what a frightened small fieldmouse he was, Jason said that with such certainty that Bruce was sure he would never break the promise._

_"Well, then, Jason," Bruce leaned forward, picked up a fallen petal beneath his fingertips and put it back into Jason's palm._

_"Let's find him."_

* * *

_Of course, Bruce didn't find the possibly make-belief friend, blue eyes  weren't a hell of a clue to go off, especially in a city the size of Gotham, but the fact that he said he would look was something that made Jason... act more like a living creature, and less of a fractured shell washed ashore in the last flood tide. He was hopeful, he wanted this friend of his to be real and he tentatively allowed it to show. It made Bruce think there was a chance to find light at the end of the darkness._

_And then he fell upon some very upsetting information. God knows how he didn't find out before, how the hell did he not get the news that the GCPD started a witch hunt for Dick? Allegedly, his son went off the rails and committed a quintet homicide on Carnival road, two families dead, and the killer missing. The crime happened, Bruce checked, but there was no way Dick could have done it. There was no question, he was 100% confident in that._

_He started to go over the whole thing with a fine tooth comb and discovered the name of one of the victims was so on the nose - so fucking blatantly obvious ,  that for a beat, he was frowning in disbelief. Joseph Kerr. Really? Why the hell didn't the damn clown just go out with his makeup on for all the anonymity that alias gave him? He wasn't dead. That was a given. His body and his son's weren't actually found but there was enough blood at the scene to proclaim both dead._

_His son was named Jason._

_That's when it all clicked. It fell into place like a ton of bricks and Bruce was off to find Dick at the speed of an arrow launched from a bow.  This needed to be resolved, clarity came with more questions._

_And then when he was nearing Bludhaven's border, Alfred called him in an SOS message. The manor's perimeter security was tripped, someone was there and Bruce did a U-turn in the batmobile on the interstate and burned rubber back to his home. Whoever crept in past the alarms came quietly into the mansion before he got there but nothing was stolen. No object, at least._

_The first thing he did was race to Jason's bedroom, heart lodged painfully in his throat for all the right reasons, he couldn't find the boy anywhere. He was just gone and on the wall was a scribbling in red lipstick letters._

_**MY MUNCHKIN!!!** _

_The sentence didn't make a lick of sense. The manor was empty. Bruce raced to check the security feed and to his disturbance and confusion, the camera positioned outside Jason's window showed the child quite willingly following.... the Joker, through the garden. His expression was relieved, so, so relieved in the clown's presence but he did toss the mansion a glance before they were out of the recorder's sights._

_The Bat was about to throw Gotham on its head to find Jason, break Joker in two if he had to, but before he could be out of the door, Diana called. A mission of utmost urgency with the League, the timeline was in imminent danger, Armageddon in the next hour, the sort of world-ending calamity that his blind eye could bring about. He wanted to prioritise Jason, he tried to but when Diana made it brutally clear how important this was, how many would die, he swore to return as quickly as he could._

_And then the whole being trapped in another dimension where time moves differently thing. This... this was hell in a handbasket._

* * *

 

Lips parted with the groan, Jason knew he was bound before his lashes batted open. He knew he was underground before his sight stopped blurring and he had one question, why the hell was he in a damn cave?

Drowsy though he was, Jason straightened in the chair he was tied to, sluggish vision taking a few moments to register his surroundings. Okay.... there's a fucking dinosaur in the corner over there, next to a giant penny and rows upon rows of display cases holding the grandest collection of Halloween costumes he'd ever seen. Most of them were Batman suits with little to no differentiation between them while others were variations of the Nightwing outfit or the unmistakable red tunic and lemon yellow cape of Robin. 

Opposite to that, on the other end of the cave, a multitude of computer screens and their larger-than-life control board occupied space, every monitor black and quiet. Overhead, malicious-looking rock formations, stalactite, hung menacingly, threatening to fall from so little as a stray breath and crush anyone beneath. 

.... Okay, where the hell was he? The last bits of information that his brain downloaded before going black was JoZarro bursting in to beat the high hell out him. It was a glorious display of raw animal power, the savagery of him pounding Jason into mush was mouthwatering from a tyrannical point of view. You might say he didn't have his priorities in check, but he was already scheming on how he would get little Joey Wilson under his control. Lord knows his powers would prove more than a little beneficial for the Hood's cause. Fuck, he should've known that all this time, he had the wrong Wilson child at the end of his leash.

" _Jason_." 

Slowly blinking with all the time in the world, Jason turned his attention to the other person, who was grimly watching him from a meter of distance. Oh hello there, it looked like Batman had chosen to remove his cowl and was now seated in a chair turned the wrong way around, the backrest to his chest, his arms folded on the edge of it and chin rested on them. His eyes were dark when looking at the teen, dark and oh-so-angsty, as if every bit of suffering in the world was his own personal tragedy. 

"... I usually like a guy to buy me a drink before I wake up at his place, tied up and searched." Jason smirked in spite of his less than ideal situation, shifting in his ropes and judging by how snugly they clung to his frame, he didn't have a single piece of weaponry on him. Kudos to the Bat if he found each and every one of his concealed carry-on arsenal. With all sincerity, that was very impressive.

"But I'm nothing if not versatile. We can try your thing." He went on and wasn't ignorant to irritating his company but Batman wasn't the person who just got ran over by a fucking freight train, Jason called the right to be annoying. For as long as his ribs burned like a bitch on fire and there wasn't a single muscle not crying out when used, he was gonna be the least standable human being there was.

"Don't  you remember  _anything_  about where we are?" Bats asked, posing the question as if the probability that Jason might had any legs to stand on. Exactly  _what_  was he supposed to remember about this place? The dinosaur? 'Cause trust him, that shit was memorable. If he'd ever seen the T-Rex, he'd recall it.

"Sorry, old man, this cave is just as cavey as all the other caves I've been in. Nothing special about it." 

"You've been here before, Jason."  Bats insisted and Jason had to hand it to him, the tone of his voice was very convincing.  _Where_  was this man's Oscar?

"If you say so, Bats. How long ago would you say I was last here?" His smirk persisted to remain smug, completely unaware of himself.

"Because... if it was more than three months ago, then I woulda been seventeen and I'm sure the law has something to say about a dude dressed up as a flying rodent having  _children_  tied up in his basement." Jason tilted his head to the side, almost onto his shoulder and he didn't care that Batman's expression hardened dangerously.

"And you think the law has nothing to say about holding a city hostage and committing genocide?" 

"So you're confirming you've had little boys locked up down here? Shame on you, Mr Bruce Wayne Gacy." Yeah, it wasn't exactly difficult to identify the guy as Gotham's mysteriously vanished billionaire. In truth, Jason figured it out instantly, something about his adoptive gypsy bitch being Nightwing was a pretty good lead. And if Bats wanted to hide the small matter of his identity, he wouldn't have taken his mask off. He should be worried when a man deemed himself as having nothing to lose, but Jason wasn't. 

"Stop joking around, this  _isn't_  a game."

"Um,  _excuse_  me?" Jason cocked a brow sarcastically. "You're a billionaire running around, dressed like a flying rat and pounding the ever-loving fuck out of the mentally ill, and I'm a high school drop-dead turned prolific mass murderer, with a military at my command and absolutely no sense of where the line is, but now I'm hogtied in a cave with you. It's  _all_  a game. Life's just a fucking  _game_."

"I can tell the Joker raised you." Bruce said, low, getting up from his chair and walking around to Jason, stopping at a  _generous_  three feet of distance to him. His arms were folded across his broad chest, those big thick fucking muscular arms that could break a  man's neck with ease, and Jason entertained the idea that he was either deliberately trying to be intimidating or he was so far into this masquerading that it came without thought.

"And he did a damn fine job of it." Jason hadn't realised his smirk had lessened until it widened again, the sharp points of his canines flashing when he looked up at the bigger man. Grant was definitely a good practise piece when it came to not being scared by acting like a smug son-of-a-bitch in the face of someone who could crush him.

"Jason,  Joker corrupted you before you could even talk. He turned you into a murderer, he hurt you and he made you crazy, that's not your fault." While he spoke, Bruce lowered himself onto his knees and moved Jason's snow-white hair out of his face,  tucking it behind his ear, removing the curtain of it from hiding the ugly scar Grayson gave him. Although he kept on grinning like he had the upper hand, Jason couldn't pretend he wasn't on edge when the man knew that was there. How did he know?

"And he gave you this. You remember all  _that_ , don't you?"

Jason jerked his head back, teeth bared, smile forgotten.

"I  _remember_  your pretty boy brat shot me and  _killed_  me."

Ooh, that didn't sit well. The Bat's features tensed just enough to see, but not out of shock or surprise. So he knew? Knew his little birdie put bullets through kids? Goody. 

"You would never have gotten hurt if Joker hadn't put you in harm's way."

"So, what're you tryna say?" Jason pursed his lips. "That my clown daddy doesn't  _love_  me? Sorry to waste your efforts, but I don't  _care_."

"That's not why I'm telling you this."

Rolling his eyes and with a click of his tongue, the teen leaned as far forward as the ropes would allow him to. He didn't leave a foot of space between himself and the Bat.

"Then  _why_  are you telling me this?"

"Because I need you to understand Joker is more than capable of abandoning you to his enemy."

" _Pft_." The eighteen-year-old scoffed. "I think you're exaggerating, B-man. Black Mask wasn't Joker's enemy, they were more like.... codependent parasites." 

" _Not_  Black Mask." Batman rose, a foreboding sense flooding the room when he stared down at Jason. Everything in the world fell silent for him.

" _Me_." He said it with such an air of finality, such darkness that Jason was expecting something big and dramatic to happen. But nothing did.

Jason blew out his cheeks.

"Well, that was fucking anticlimactic."

With no warning, the Bat grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and yanked on up, out of the chair and then Jason was being held up only by the bigger man.  He was expecting to be thrown, he was tense for it, only it didn't happen.

"You  _know_  me, Jason."

"I surely don't."

"You know me but you don't remember." 

"I  _don't_ , okay? I - I fucking don't know you, I've never seen you up until a few days ago." Jason was beginning to get a little agitated with him and this truth he was trying to force down his throat. It was strange, that what Batman was saying didn't sound like a blatant lie, it... sounded distantly familiar but at the same time, there was no way it could be. There was only Joker and what came after him, nothing in between.

But Batman seemed as if he genuinely believed this and that was worrying.

"Prove it then." Jason tipped his chin up a fraction, still in the hands of the Bat, still half a foot off the floor. 

"Prove that you're not lying." There was no way he could, no real reason to humour him, but Jason often found himself engaging in pointless activity for his own amusement.

"I was chasing Joker and I found you, abandoned at a toy store and took you in. I learned Dick shot you and I was on my way to confront him, when Alfred called. The mansion's perimeter alarms were tripped, I came back as fast as I could but you weren't there. Your bedroom door was open, you were gone. I tried to find you but I was forced away from the city."

Jason knit his brows in confusion. He didn't want to admit it... but he might recall fragmented bits of -  _no_. No, this was all bullshit. 

Glaring, the teen spat at him. His last fuse for this bastard just burned out.

"Look, man, you either fucking kill me now or hand me over to those lunatic Wilsons to tear up, 'cause I'm done entertaining this damn idea of yours. No more playing pretend." 

"Jason-"

"What the fuck do you think trying to brainwash me will get you? Think I'll keel over an' call you daddy? Or are you thinking more hug it out?" 

"I  _want_  you to remember the part of you that isn't a monster." The Bat stated, getting irritable himself, and he let Jason go with a jerk. His legs weren't tied, he could stand alone, and he was planning on dealing this motherfucker a really hard-to-forget boot to the larynx. 

"Oh, I remember that guy. Remember him  _clearly_. How do you think I know what I  _don't_  want to be?" He had the last half of the angry retort barely out his mouth when Jason slammed a knee into Bruce's gut so violently, it made the man double with pain. The blow would have winded anyone else, maybe he just hid it too well, but he made that classic mistake the teen destroyed his relationships to avoid; experiencing emotion.  

The Bat recovered quick and tried to grab Jason, but he was too fast, he jumped back just in time to avoid the hands that would have enclosed around him.

"In case I didn't  make it clear," Jason growled, ready to rip this guy to bits even with his arms bound. 

"Fuck  _you_. Fuck everything about you. Fuck Dick Grayson and  _especially_ , fuck your T-Rex."

* * *

 

"So, uh.... I'm going out for a... run, dad. Flex my rock hard muscles. I'll be back in a little while."

Out the corner of his eye, Slade glanced at Grant, who regarded him with the most nervous expression known to man while he walked around in a skittish berth. The mercenary stood by the door of the safe house, waiting for Wayne to show the hell up with Hood so they could torture him to death already, but so far, his eldest sneaking by was the first bit of movement.

"Going out, huh?" He arched a brow, letting the deliberate way he swept his gaze over Grant linger enough to become obvious. Not counting the mask, he was geared up in full Ravager attire, kevlar, armoured plates and guns galore. However, his holsters were askew and instead of keeping it in his sheath, the sword was in his non-dominant hand.  _Really_?

"Where to?"

"Uh..." Grant's tongue swiped his lip quickly, eyes darting briefly as if the answer lay somewhere in their surroundings.

"To.... the - the Narrows?"

"Alright. Just be careful. Black Mask's got it in for you and his men are patrolling those grounds."

"I... um, I thought he was dead?"

Slade's expression set and he shifted by the doorway, making it clear with his change in posture that his darling child wasn't going anywhere outside of these walls.

"He is dead,  _Grant_. You were there."

"Oh - oh right, yeah, I-"

" _Joseph_ , get the hell out of your brother's body."

" _What_?" Joey raised his brows with a feigned look of surprise that bordered on outrage, glancing around him with a disbelieving half laugh. His act was pathetic, Slade had seen first grade Christmas plays with more talent behind the execution. He really hadn't studied his role at all.

"Slade, that's fucking ridic-"

"Your body's in the other room, where you're pretending to sleep while your friend Cassandra watches you, not knowing you're out here, correct? She's not going to let you sneak off to find Hood and Wayne, so you opted to, instead, possess your brother in the hopes that I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between my children?" Slade quirked a snowy eyebrow at the end there, wearing an 'am I wrong?' expression and the defeated slump in Joey's shoulders said that he most certainly wasn't. He might be the worst man to ever father children but he could tell them apart.

"I just... Dad, I just wanna know where Wayne is." Joey whined and looked at Slade with the pale blue eyes that didn't belong to him, showing no signs of vacating himself any time soon.

"What if he lets Hood go? What if Hood gets free? He'll get away with everything he's done." 

"Understandable concern." Slade admitted with a small nod, he'd briefly entertained the same fear before common sense kicked in.

"But, son, I'll never let that happen. Hood is dead. For what he did to your siblings and what he tried to do to you. I promise, whether or not Wayne gives him to us, I will kill him." 

Sighing quietly, Joey bobbed his head, nibbling on his lip. There wasn't a whole lot of faith in him but not trusting Deathstroke was a very healthy thing indeed, Slade couldn't disapprove of him for that. But he did mean what he said.

"Now would you kindly let Grant go? You know he hates it when you possess him."

Not convinced he should give up the reins yet, Joey shrugged and for whatever reason, slowly raised his hand to glide over the densely packed muscle of his abdomen. He did it so slowly that Slade could tell he was admiring his brother's athletic physique and no doubt comparing it to his own far lighter, daintier build. Joseph was always the self-conscious sort. 

"Dad, d'you think I could develop muscle like this?"

"With enough exercise." Slade assured him and wondered if Adeline scolding him for lying to the children applied in this case. In truth, Joey would never be able to build up his body like that simply because he was a slender dainty pixie and that was written in his DNA. It couldn't be changed but Slade wouldn't break his hopes and dreams by telling him that. One day, the realisation would hit the kid and he'd deal with the consequences then. Grant was naturally bulky, Joey was anything but.

"There's even muscles on my neck..." Joey mused, feeling himself out, running his fingers over his spine as if he'd never heard of brawn being equally distributed throughout the body. 

"Joseph, quit groping your brother." Words the mercenary never thought to say.

There was a knock at the door. A small knock but immediately his thoughts went to Wayne. Fucking Wayne. He was the only one who knew there was anyone here, it had to be him. Slade didn't take a precautionary second thought before he went to open, ready to punch a hole in the prick for making them wait this long.

"Joey, I  _mean_  it. Get back into your own body." He gave the order as he was pulling the door open, already aiming a punch to Wayne's level  but to his shock, there was no 6'2 man in a winged rodent suit waiting there. He had to lower his sights to  a considerably lesser height to see who it was and there stood a small redheaded girl. She was wearing some sort of mask, she had to be, her face couldn't actually look like that, so much like thick leather. He was about to demand answers to so many immediate questions when she smiled up at him, bright as sunshine.

"Hello, mister." Her voice was bubbly and cheerful like any little girl's, even when something dropped from her hand with a metallic thud and she kicked it past him, into the safe house.  Slade saw what it was just enough to curse in his head. Grenade. A fucking  _grenade_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hrnn... I am really not sure I like this, sorry for breezing over the past stuff but I wanted to fit it all in here and stay within my max word count. I've rewritten this four times and I can't do it a fifth, we'll stick to this, I hope it's alright and bear in mind, without Joker's take on the past events, a lot of it's gonna be assumptions as Jason doesn't remember and Bruce doesn't know what happened to its entirety.


	9. The Perfect Son, The Perfect Soldier

" _Joey_  - get back into your own damned body!" Dad yelled at him, yanking him by his brother's arm behind the cover of the burnt, upturned couch. The wood frame and stuffing of the cushions caught the hail of bullets the murderous little girl fired at them from the rifle she somehow managed to hold. Ungracefully, Joey stumbled and caught himself on his hands just barely. He was all of a sudden shocked by how heavy being his brother was. Wait - that was muscle, wasn't it? Yes, it had to be, Grant was bigger and stronger than he, which proved a problem when he wasn't used to this. Normally, he had time to ease into the transition and get accustomed to it, this was just all so short-notice. Walking around was fine but moving quick proved challenging.

"It takes  _concentration_ , dad!" Joey snapped at his father, unappreciative of how easy he seemed to think this was. It took more than the snap of fingers.

"Then  _concentrate_."

"There's - there's too much noise."

"God's sake, Joey," Slade muttered, rolling a cartridge into the barrel of his gun with his teeth grit. Despite being in his body, Joey couldn't tap into Grant's ability to not give a fuck when dad was mad at him; he inwardly shied into a little ball. It wasn't childish that he constantly wanted to stay on his parents' good side, was it?

"If your brother gets shot because of you, you are  _grounded_. Forever." With the frightening promise, Slade tossed a look over their cover just enough to shoot the rifle out the little girl's hands. Sparks ensued, she yelped when the weapon jerked back and from her grip, the loud clatter of metal telling it flew far enough to be momentarily harmless.

With the threat alleviated, Slade got up, Joey expected him to just scoop the girl up in one hand and be done with this. No nine-year-old was a threat for Deathstroke.

" _Screw_  you!" The aforementioned nine-year-old yelled, hurled another explosive and boom, a fiery blast threw Slade across the room like he weighed nothing. Bricks shattered when he struck the wall and fell down it. Part of his suit was blown away, the chest plate was cracked clean down the middle. Dammit.

Joey was actually afraid as he hopped over the couch and fell into the girl's line of fire when it had been established she was not to be fucked with.

"Sweetheart!" She exclaimed with a frighteningly wide smile and teeth so sharp on display that they surely couldn't belong to a human. Her eyes glittered with untapped madness that would look more in place on the Joker or Jason, not a child.

"What do you want, girl?" Joey asked, stepping closer with his hands raised defensively. Was he wrong for not wanting to resolve this by hitting a kid?

"I want Jay and  _you_  know where he is." She stated and hit a blank there. Why would Joey know where Hood was? Or did she mean Grant would know? He was certain that assumption was incorrect for them both.

"I'm sorry, I haven't seen Hood since Batman."

Frowning, she nibbled on her lip. He recalled he'd seen her tagging along with Jason, hadn't he called her Scarlet? And  _Jesus_ , their resident warlord's henchmen included children under the age of  _ten_? That was very telling of Jason.

"Batman has Jay?" Scarlet quirked her head, actually looking to him like she expected him to help her on her little quest.

"Uh, I  _think_  so?"

"Hmm.... Sweetheart, I promise not to hurt you again if you help me find Jay."

"Um...  _No_." Who did she think she was kidding with that threat? Joey knew his brother to the point where he was confident there were very few men alive who could lay a scratch on him, let alone a little girl. Grant took out a Superman clone earlier, did Scarlet actually think she was a match? Then again, she did just pound Deathstroke into the wall.

"Jay really loves you, you know. He didn't want to hurt you but you made him do it. If you'da just did as he said, no one would be dead right now."

"That's gotta be the most twisted logic I've heard in a while."

" _Joseph-_!" Cassandra's voice sounded off but the sharp sting of her backhand made a more lasting impression when it smacked across Joey's cheek, snapping his face to one side. He was faced with narrowed brown eyes and 5'2 feet of rage, scowling up at him with such anger that Cass dominated Grant's height from all the way down there. And here Joey had been hoping his sibling's impressive stature automatically made him immune to the intimidating people in his life.

There was a nice hand-shaped red mark in his brother's skin, he didn't need his reflection to know that.

"You were trying to sneak out,  _weren't_  you?" Cass demanded, scolding him while she marched over to Scarlet, took the next weapon out of her hand with a confused glance from the girl then proceeded to pick her up like she hadn't just put Slade into a crater.

"And that is  _not_  where you belong." She gestured viciously to Joey - or rather, to Grant - and her glare sunk in deeper. Gaze turning downcast under the weight of shame, Joey quietly raised his palm over the forming bruise and wondered how explaining it to his sibling would go down. Dad didn't exaggerate earlier, Grant really didn't like being possessed.... for some reason.

"I... I just wanted to find Hood." Joey mumbled, nervously wetting his lips with a dab of his tongue, running his hand through burnt blond and sable tresses just to do anything but look at her.

"And do  _what_? You can't use your own powers when you're not in your body and Hood won't struggle to defeat your brother - and you're  _nowhere_  near his skill level even as him." She went on and while that was harsh, but not untrue. Joey should have thought of that.

From near that charred and broken corner, Joey sensed that dad had crawled back onto his feet and was looking at them, silent to see if Cassandra's 'parenting' methods went through any better than his. He might be taking mental notes.

Scarlet squirmed from the prison of Cassandra's arms, struggling to get free.

"I want Jay-"

"You stop it right now, you  _bad_  child." Cass cut her off sternly, way before she could finish the bratty whine, and she plunked Scarlet onto her feet, grip firm on her shoulders. Cassandra knelt down to make some steely eye contact with the girl, who'd gone completely mum in the horrifying face of  _discipline_.

"You have behaved very badly. Look at what you did to this house. There are explosion marks everywhere and bullets in the walls. Your mother would be  _very_  ashamed she didn't teach you better."

"But - but Jay-"

"Is  _Jason_  your mother?" Cass quirked a brow with the demand and gave a 'bitch, I think not' sort of expression that Joey often saw on Wintergreen's face, every time Slade was contemplating something idiotic.

"N - no." Scarlet's eyes flitted to stare at the floor, nervously batting them and refusing Cassandra's line of sight. Joey knew what she  felt, trust him.

"And I will be having a word with Jason, as well, about what you've done here." Oh... Joey wasn't sure if Cass was just drawing this out or if she actually meant that, but whatever the truth, it was really getting to Scarlet. She was worried and asking over and over that Cassie not to let the madman know any of this happened, no matter that he was the one who taught her.

From across the room, Joey slowly met his father's line of sight, neither knowing what to think and both hoping the other did.

"Go get back into your body." Dad quietly told him and nodding, Joey slunk off to do exactly that.

He left his rightful host body down the hall, in what looked like it was once a spare bedroom, and found it there, sprawled out across the dusty duvets covering the queen sized bed. Cass had painted his nails in rainbow colours, a different shade for each finger. Well, while dealing with his brother's near-certain wrath, at least he would have fabulous hands.

Joey wondered if Slade would come between him and Grant or just let them quarrel it out. Honestly, Joey wasn't sure how he would fair, given how he had no winning argument here that would convince anyone that he had no choice but to possess his brother.

Standing over himself, he exhaled quietly, reluctant to give up control over Grant simply because being him meant Joey was exactly what Slade desired. Not the perfect son but the perfect soldier, which is the thing dad had always wanted. Someone on par with Deathstroke. And not even that was good enough for the old guy.

Idly, he glanced out the window when the corner of his eye caught sunlight glinting off something on the roof of the opposing window, and then the red filled his vision. Red belonging to the clothing of the person standing there, aiming a weapon at him.

Even from this distance, Joey recognised Jason and he did not hesitate when pulling back the trigger of the rocket launcher.

Joey gave half a startled scream when the projectile careered through the window and glass exploded inward at him. He  didn't have the luxury of time to react before the room was consumed by a rush of heat and fire.  It felt like the door's to hell were thrown open beside him.

The blast wave was plenty more than he could steel himself against, Joey didn't know if it was the floor or wall he was hurled into and his brother's armour barely kept the flames from scorching them both to death.

He must've blacked out because he didn't remember half of the building falling into the street.

And then the next thing he knew, the weight of the world was on his back, pinning him, crushing him, any tiny movement grinding rock and dirt into the tears in his suit.

Panting, Joey pushed his eyelids apart -  _pushed_ , the effort almost enough to send him spiralling back to blackness. He bit his split lip, sinking the points of his teeth into it  and latched onto the sole notion of keeping awake. It was hard, harder than anything, but he was stubborn as fuck and that took him a ways. The small jolts of sharp needles would help him not pass out.

Head aching, his whole body screaming out at any movement, Joey took a few more small gasps for oxygen, filling only one lung while the other's resistance to expand was nothing short of agony. Shit. He had collapsed it, hadn't he? Or in the very least had the wind knocked out of him something awful.

A livewire of pain twisted through his body and latched hooked talons into his raw nerves. He couldn't hear it, but Joey felt it, tiny weak whimpers coming in a trembling, broken mantra from between his teeth, sitting on the edge of his lips, so breathy yet he felt like his lungs were empty and constricting from the fire swirling out of control in his gut. A colossal weight laid all around him, worst on his leg. He couldn't even move the damn thing an inch because of what was crushing it, a concrete slab maybe, the sharp edges cutting into his muscle. Sticky warm, drying blood covered him all over.

 _Fuck_.

Somewhere far, far in the distance, he might have heard his dad calling his name in an urgent manner.

" _Joseph! Joey!_ "

Not remembering they ever fell shut, Joey opened his eyes to a blurring world and this time, he wasn't alone.

A red hood and poison green eyes loomed over him. A devilish grin flashed.

"Well, well, well, good to see you again, darlin'..." Jason's voice was swimming in and out of focus. Joey didn't understand what he was talking about until he dully recalled he was still in his brother's body, Jason thought he was Grant.  Oh shit.

Unable to speak past the pain and taste of blood in his mouth, Joey realised part of him was trapped beneath the debris of the half-destroyed building only when he tried to pull himself away from the hand that found itself into his hair.

"Did you really think Sasha doesn't have a tracker? Of course, I'd find you through her." Jason sounded disturbingly close to playful when he dragged Joey into the clear by that fistful of his locks, ignoring the strained whine of protest. Either Jason was a lot stronger than he was credited or Joey was incredibly weak right now, too weak to fight back. Rapidly, he could feel his brother's healing factor battling to repair the damage, resetting and fusing together the snapped bones and torn muscles.

Joey groaned when Jason threw him onto his back, trying to roll to his side and find his footing but the attempt alone made him want to curl up and die. He  _really_  wanted to return to his own body now, but he didn't know if he had the power to or even where his body was, there was a strong possibility it was buried beneath all that rubble and stone.

"You're - you're not worried you could have killed S - Scarlet?" He struggled to ask as Jason neared. How the hell did this lunatic escape Batman? Didn't he care that dad was prowling around and would tear him in two? 

" _Sasha_." Jason corrected. "And no. I scouted the building for her, calculated the blast range, and wouldn't have fired if there was a chance I might've hit her."

"Th - then where's Batman?" 

"On his way, I bet. I barely got away from that guy, he'll be here in five minutes,  _tops_." He stepped over Joey and tipped his head with a wicked grin.

"But we've got time, honey. All the time." Then he lunged.

With a last ditch burst of adrenaline rushing in, Joey gagged and kicked when Jason threw his hands around his throat and squeezed until a cartilaginous ring in his trachea shifted. Despite his struggling, he couldn't get him off of himself. The weight of the other teenager was more than he expected when it piled on him all at once, pinning his arms to his sides.

"But that's  _not_  Grant, is it?" Jason inquired while he choked the life out of Joey, squeezing harder until his fingers went all the way around his throat.

"You're acting too scared to pull off your brother's look, Joey. Plus, he could throw me off him, no matter how wounded he is." 

His surroundings were starting to fill with growing dots of blackness,  the pressure in his skull threatening to burst it and Joey didn't understand what was zapping his strength like this, to the point where there was no way he might be able to get out from under Hood despite him currently being the smaller one.  Grant was supposed to be fucking  _strong_. Stronger than most men but it took everything in Joey just to keep breathing what little he could. There was an unseen drain that his energy reserves were swivelling down. 

Where the fuck was Slade?!

"Run and hide in your own body, little Joey." Hood jeered through a mad wolfish grin, tightening his hands and cutting off Joey's air even more. For a brief heartbeat of utter panic, what Hood suggested was tempting, except this lunatic had killed his sister and tortured his brother half to death, Joey needed to protect Grant from him, even if that meant inhabiting his body to spare him whatever Jason had planned.

He could take the pain.

He  _would_  take it.

"Cause I'm gonna kill you  _and_  Ravie if you don't. Don't you wanna make sure even one Wilson kid survives me? Rose is already dead...." He sneered, staring directly into his eyes and somehow not seeing anything except another conquest.

Jason made a mistake there, that one look was all the connection a desperate Joey Wilson needed.

All at once, Joey swamped into Jason, energy rushing through him and ripping the reins from him without a thing the maniac could do to fight it. Gasping when all the senses and nerves connected to his will, when he could breathe again, Joey was immediately struck by the sheer amount of....  _Everything_  suddenly screaming at him, madness and anger and... Something else. Dark. Wicked.

But he didn't have time to focus on it.

Panic darted across Grant's features, alarm and confusion, a second of fear and on rushed instinct, he struck out and clumsily hit Joey, throwing him off. Yelping, Joey's shoulder hit the ground first and a spear of fire shot through him. He desperately tried to sign to his brother that he wasn't Jason but the hurt he thought he was in for because of the misidentification wasn't for him to worry about, not when Grant's attempt to stand was met with a sharp wince and sharper gasp of pain; he crumbled back onto all-fours and it took a second-person's POV to realise how badly the fallen building damaged him. 

Blood was leaking from the spaces between the armoured plates of his suit. The kevlar over his back was torn and the aforementioned armour plates bent and cutting into his skin, his neck and part of his jaw were burned from the explosion. He was breathing so heavily that he pushed the metal deeper into his skin every time his chest expanded. Grant was staring at the ground, all manner of confusion mixed with the energy he knew he didn't have to push himself off the floor with.

Gathering himself, Joey approached his brother and when he received the expected murderous leer, he pointed to himself and mouthed his name. With Jason being conscious when possessed, Joey couldn't talk through him but brother got the message at once; he looked as relieved as he did annoyed.

"Stop doing that! Stay in your own fucking body -  _ngh_." Grant stopped yelling at Joey to violently wince and wrap his arm around his side, putting so much pressure on it that it was almost assured he had a broken rib or two. Grant must be so confused, the last thing he remembered was getting tased by dad then waking up here, but the dots of what happened connected for him, Joey saw the realisation in his eyes and was accordingly afraid. 

"Joseph, I will  _murder_  you...." He growled through his teeth, clenched in either anger or pain. To his own peril, Grant slapped Joey away when he tried to help him rise and ended up hurting himself with the movement of his arm. Joey attempted to apologise, he really did, but it wasn't accepted and right on cue, dad came jogging up from somewhere behind the smoke and smouldering debris. He had his sword in his hand and he did not look happy.

In Hood's skin, Joey immediately braced himself for the punch or the dismemberment, but his saving grace was his brother, surprisingly enough. With a jolt and shaky breath, Grant pushed himself off the ground and put a protective arm across Joey's chest before Slade could kick it in.

"Grant, what are you-"

"Dad, it's not Jason; it's Joey. Don't hurt the little bitch." 

There were so many questions but pausing, Slade stared at Grant, stared at his wounds and then turned that stare onto his middle child, only it was more of a 'what the fuck have you done' expression then. Joey looked at his feet. He knew he'd fucked up but hey, at least he caught Hood...  _again_.

Grant was struggling to get the top half of his suit off, he wouldn't heal right with the bent metal poking him, except his hands were shaking too badly to get a good grip of the clasps holding it to him. Exhaling, Slade sheathed his sword and went to help his eldest.  _WTF_  was spelt across the slightly alarmed, slightly outraged face Grant gave him the moment he unclasped the first lock without asking permission or offering his aid.

"Slade, I don't need-"

"Just shut up and let me help you for once." The mercenary muttered and effectively succeeded in silencing his son.  Good.

One buckle was crushed, it wasn't about to unlock with the inner mechanisms destroyed and instead of even trying, Slade broke it with a single strong yank. Grant mumbled an awkward line between 'thanks' and 'fuck you' when his father lifted the suit from over his head and folded it across his arm, exposing Grant's wounds to the light and air. They were sealing as he watched, the gaping rips in his skin becoming smaller and smaller with every breath. 

Slade didn't make it known, kept it all to himself, but he'd been scared back there, scared his boys were hurt or worse. Deathstroke didn't like being afraid but that wasn't the reason seeing Grant and Joey alive made it possible for his heart rate to slow.

Joey was staring off into space, his father noticed that and was about to comment on it but then Wayne and his girl came running along, subsequently distracting him entirely. About fucking time they showed up. 

That little redheaded hyena brat of Hood's had skittered along somewhere else when the explosion happened, she wasn't here to wail over her precious  _Jay_  again and better that way. They didn't need her here, causing a scene.

Slade was going to punch the Bat's head off for keeping Hood from them, he really was, the moment he was close enough but Grant stepped in the way, regarding him with a wary expression.

"Dad, please don't start fighting again.  _Please_ , no more fighting today." He sounded so tired, so done with all of this shit that, although he didn't want to, Slade gave a nod and low hum of confirmation. Maybe it was just because his kid had gotten hurt so many times already that Slade respected what he wanted in regards to this. Usually, no one told him who not to pick fights with.

Patting him on the shoulder, Slade stepped around Grant and met Wayne where he stood, five meters away. Grimly, the man was looking at Joey and he must've figured out that wasn't Jason as he didn't ask questions.

Slowly, he fixed his set stare on Slade and they glared at one another in silence. Wayne was daring the merc to hurt Hood, Slade was daring him to try stop him. His boys would be on his side, for their sister, for each other, the Bat and his little china doll weren't going to be a match  if it came to a fight and the man knew that, he didn't try anything...  _yet_. 

" _This_  time..." Slade growled. "We handle Hood my way. You've had enough time running around with him."

Wayne's jaw set, his teeth clicked, but he didn't say yes or no. He was completely quiet, say for the loud rumble of his scheming mind. This wasn't over, it was clear but the mercenary wasn't interested in that right now.

With a final death leer, Slade turned back to his kids, lingering at the distance he'd left them. Grant was still holding his side and his little brother hadn't broken his stare-off with nothingness, he was in a trance of sorts. Perhaps Hood had a habit of spacing out that transferred onto Joey? 

"Grant, Joseph," Slade called to them and got both of their attention at once, although Joey did snap out of whatever was wrong with him with a rather violent jerk, blinking rapidly. 

"Let's go. We need to find your body, Joey, and we put Joker's rabid pet down after."

Despite his injuries, Grant grinned expectantly when he cracked his knuckles.

"I get first and last blows." 

"Of course, son. It would be a crime to not let you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... Game over for Jay, huh? There's no way he's gettin' outta this... HUH?!


	10. The Ends and Their Means

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *peaks head from rabbit hole*

Yet to vacate Jason's body, Joey didn't sleep well at all. He had a strange dream... no, it was a nightmare. A nightmare where he was in a house, an ordinary pedestrian house where everything was wrapped in a summery peaceful haze, swaddled in a blanket of security and the sense of safety. But to him, it felt wrong, dangerous, and he couldn't explain what made it that way. The whole home was still and unmoving when out of nowhere, a shot was taken, an ear-shattering bang filled the room  and a sudden white-hot pain exploded through Joey's head.

It was all swan-diving to hell from there. 

There was a suffocating rush of glowing poison green all around him, not the green of his energy but another altogether. This was evil, twisted and dark, an angry monster that wanted to swallow every bit of him into a place where no one could hear him scream. 

There was the screech of a buzz saw, a drill whirring to life, and more shrieks and cries than he could tell apart from one another.

And then Joey woke up but not where he went to sleep, he'd crossed the living room and was looming over... his brother. There was a knife in his hand. Knees drawn, Grant was asleep in that corner on the opposite side of the room, completely vulnerable, completely unaware of him. 

The dagger trembled in Joey's -  _Jason's_  - hand, trembled with the urge to sink it deep into his sibling. It was a mind-numbing desire, all he could focus on yet he felt detached to it as if it was something possessing him instead of the other way around.

And then the feeling vanished when Slade appeared behind him and at the snap of invisible fingers, the spell broke.

"What're you doing, Joseph?" Dad asked, sceptical, cautious, glancing from Joey to the weapon in his fist to Joey again, meeting his line of sight with so many inaudible questions. He took the blade from his son and sheathed it in one of the many holsters on his person, where it looked like it originally belonged. Did... did Joey somehow take it from him and now remember?

Joey gave an uncertain shrug, gaze falling heavily to the floor to survey his boots. Yet again, he had the hopeless urge to get back into his own body and fast but dad was worried Jason would escape again if freed from his grip.

He had to be this madman's jailer until they killed him. Imprison him in his own body where it still felt as if though Jason had all the cards up his sleeves, pulling at Joey's strings at his leisure. This wasn't like all the countless times he'd possessed a person, there was scratching down the halls of his mind, the sounds of a violent creature trying to break its chains. The sheer amount of insanity in Jason, Joey could see how it had warped him. Fighting it took everything in him, giving in would be the easiest thing he could do for himself.

But that sounded like what the insanity wanted him to do. 

It was speaking to him. Whispering, rather, in a voice too low for anyone else to hear. It dwelt just beneath his skin, creeping its way to the surface with an insistence to get through to him. Letting it up from the depths would be the most fatal choice to make.

God, he couldn't wait to get out of this lost cause of a human being. He needed to remain himself until then, do anything it took to keep Jason at bay. Normally,  his host bodies stayed silent and stayed down when he had their reins, but not Jason. It wasn't so much that he was tormenting Joey but his monstrous insanity was.

"Come on, Joseph," Dad took him by the shoulders and walked him back the way he had come. Joey picked up on the rare note of concern to his voice, but not concerned enough to let him return to his own body. Slade's desire to kill his enemies would always outweigh the importance of all other existing factors.

"Try to get some sleep." Slade instructed him but Joey was sure he wouldn't even risk the effort. He needed to be awake if he was going to control this thing.

* * *

 

"Slade, you  _have_  to reconsider this." Bruce urged for the hundredth time and he didn't know why he was bothering trying to get through to a stubborn man whose mind was made up. Briskly, he walked after the mercenary as Slade effortlessly carried the sawed half of a telephone pole over his shoulder. He and his sons had a cute little construction project going on in the deserted street. Something to do with Jason's execution that Bruce was trying to get in the way of.

"I'm not reconsidering  _anything_. I am going to kill that thing and there's nothing you can do about  it." Slade was so sure of his standing as he continued down the sidewalk with Bruce struggling to remain in-step with him. It was utterly useless to argue with a fucking blond and yet the Bat found himself appealing to that, his only chance here. Slade wasn't wrong with the threat he'd left unsaid, there was no way Bruce was a match to a trio of Wilsons who would stand between him and Jason. Powerful as they were, taking one down would be a perilous effort on its own.

And it hadn't been exactly spoken, but Cass was with them on this too. Be that for her unknown reasons or for the sake of her friend, Joey.

"What if this was one of your kids? Would you kill Grant or Joseph if they went off the rails like this?" This wasn't Jason, not the one Bruce knew, and he just had to get it through to Slade that something happened that made his kid like this.  _Someone_  made him like this.

"Absolutely." The other confirmed with disturbing readiness. 

"Let's say I did care about your brat, I'd wanna put him down for his own good before someone less nice does it for you. But I don't care." While Slade didn't bother explaining why he was so ready to kill his children if a situation called for it, they came within view of what he and his boys were building. Gallows. They had a fucking gallows erected in the street and not the sort that broke your neck when the chair was kicked, they chose to construct the kind that took longer to claim the kill. With this, the winch mechanism and length of the rope, the person subjected to it would choke to death with time to spare. 

And that person was intended to be Jason.

Joey stood by and watched his brother balancing on the crossbar of their creation, adding some finishing touches in the form of driving nails into the wood with the hilt of his sword. This was a very deliberate effort on their part, given how it didn't have to take them more than a second to either shoot or decapitate Jason.

But this was all Slade's disturbed eldest's idea. He was the one who woke up with 'Hey, dad, let's build a medieval execution device with scavenged materials!' Well, not his  _exact_  words but close enough to the truth.

"Slade,  _please_ ," Bruce caught his wrist in a last ditch effort to talk to him. Luckily, Slade didn't drop the pole on his shoulder or hit the other with it, but he did grind his jaw in irritability.

"Let  _me_  take Jason. I'll go somewhere far away, where you'll never have to see him again. He won't be a problem for you anymore." That was a plea, there was no sugarcoating that. If Slade demanded it, Bruce wasn't beneath getting on his knees and begging more openly. Just... he couldn't lose Jason. Not after Dick. Not after everything. Later, he would address how 'everything' was Jason's doing.

"Will that bring my daughter back to life?" Slade inquired,  bordering on dangerous sarcasm only ever seen in him moments before someone's throat was cut. This was a deadly place to be and Bruce knew it. But he kept pushing. He just continued overlooking how appealing to Slade's paternal side, his status as a father, never bore any fruit. Slade was a vengeful man before he was a father.

"No, but killing Jason won't either."

"Well, we haven't tried it yet so we don't know." The mercenary shrugged and didn't provide a window for further attempts to get through, he rejoined his kids and put the telephone pole down beside their creation. Grant didn't pay him any attention and Joey was staring at nothing again, which had become a frequent thing he did inJason's skin. It was a trait of Jason's that Bruce recognised, at least one he had when he was smaller. 

" _Joseph_ ," Slade shook his youngest son by the shoulder and snapped him out of the trance. The kid blinked at him in momentary confusion before he remembered where he was again. He groaned, covering his face with his hand and running it back through his hair, keeping it there to hold a clump of the strands. The lad really wasn't looking so good, Bruce didn't know exactly why but he bet it was something to do with possessing Jason. And Slade too had noticed the decline in his son's wellbeing but ignored it in favour of pursuing his own interests.

Model dad right there. No wonder he so openly confessed to being willing to commit filicide.

"Hang on a little longer, Joey." Slade told his kid, patting him on the head quite dismissively while he went to assist Grant in adding the final support beam. Joey looked after him with blank eyes.

Bruce had a bad idea. Well, it wasn't a  _bad_  idea in the sense that it wouldn't work, it definitely could, but it was bad in the moral area. One thing would make Slade and Grant both agree to postpone their plans. 

 _Joey_. 

Bruce could use Joey to his own advantage, as much as the idea that came with the notion swayed him from his honour code. He'd given Slade enough chances to resolve this in a way that would serve everyone well, what Bruce had to do from here on out to keep his son alive was entirely because Slade refused those chances. 

Bruce wasn't about to lose Jason. Not a second time, no matter what atrocities he'd committed.

Quiet as the night he was named for, the Bat slunk away from their circle to spend some time in his twisted plans to achieve what he had to. The ends justify the means, he once told Dick. Again that was true.

Again it convinced him he was right.

* * *

 

"Alright, cherub, give me Jason." 

With expressionless eyes, Joey stared at his brother as if he didn't register a thing he just said. 

" _Dad says_ -"

"Slade's not fucking here, Joey. He won't be back for a bit so gimme Jason, I wanna fuck him up a little before we get to kill him." With dad doing god knows what and Wayne no longer hovering by, Grant was inclined to break some bones for his own personal enjoyment. He deserved that, didn't he? With every single personalised hell Jason put him through, he called the  _right_  to torture the son-of-a-bitch to even out the score. His ex-playmate killed Rose, killed Duela, tried to kill  _Joey_....

"Joseph, I'm not playing with you." Grant huffed, agitated as he stared his brother down. The fact that he was both looking at Jason and not was unsettling, to say the least, and fighting off the urge to maim him right here was a constant struggle. Joey better just bugger off to his own body already.

" _Dad says to wait for him to come back_."

Grant's eyes narrowed.

"I'm older than you, so do as I fucking say."

" _Dad says you're not allowed to pull that card. He says_ -"

"For fuck's sake,  _Joseph_." He raked frustrated hands through his hair, exhaling again, with more force this time. Rose would be on his team if she were here, she wasn't the goodie-goodie golden sunshine baby who couldn't defy their parents. 

"Stop thinking about what dad wants for one second and think about what  _I_  want." Without warning, Grant tried to grab him but the mite was too quick to duck beneath his arm and get away from his hands 

" _Grant, stoppit_!" Joey half-pleaded as he jumped back from another attempt of imprisonment, too worn out by the bane that was being around Jason to fight back the way he was capable. Hand-to-hand, Grant could  _vanquish_  him but he wouldn't dare to try to take on the termite when he was in his own body, his powers were formidable enough to make even dad watch himself while around Joey. It was once said Jericho was a Superman level threat so yeah...

"Just do as I say!" Dammit, Grant almost had him there but he was rabbit-fast to run from every attack that wasn't really even an  _attack_. Grant just wanted to torture his former childhood best friend for hours on end, was that too much to desire? 

" _Dad says_ -" 

"Boys, where's your father?" 

The brothers quit squabbling in mid-attempt to snatch Joey when Wayne appeared at the door with his question and immediately, Grant noted that he felt off. His demeanour was all over the place as far as his usual brooding sombre self went, he was keeping more within himself than ever and that was evident even from the first glance.

"Uh, he's not here at the moment." Grant sceptically replied, lowering the hands he had extended towards his little brother and turning to Wayne with a questioning knit of his brows.

" _But he'll be back soon_." Joey quickly added, apparently taking note of the odd vibe coming off the man as well. Unconsciously or not, he shied closer to Grant and he put an instinctive arm across Joey as if they were facing a threat of immeasurable dangers.

Wayne watched them without reaction to how clearly they perceived him as a possible threat, dad had told them to be wary of the guy and that he'd most likely try something to help Jason out. Why he would, Grant had no clue, seeing as Jason destroyed Gotham and killed the Bat's own son. 

Maybe Wayne was just an idiot.

Slowly, Wayne's dark eyes drifted from Grant to Joey and locked on him the way a carnivore stared at its prey. That did not sit well with Grant, he tensed as his hand floated readily by his holster. The way dad had taught him, he instantly searched Wayne for weak spots in his suit and homed in on just two but they'd do if it came to it.

"Joey, you should give me Jason." Wayne's voice was low but the order was just that, an  _order_. A tad concerned, Joey glanced at his brother as if he had the answers here. Well, he did, and its name was a bullet to the fucking face. Wayne better not try him, he was tired of this damn family. Jason, Batman, fucking  _Nightwing_  who sparked all of this, they could all go to hell.

"I don't want to hurt either of you boys." He went on to say and for the life of him, Grant couldn't help the scoff and eye roll. 

"Try it, grandpa." He bared his teeth as he unsheathed the blade off his back, more than willing to make some bat kebabs with it. Wayne came just a few steps closer but it was plenty to work as motivation to shove Joey behind him where he was safe. Grant really didn't care if the kid could defend himself just fine.

"Grant,  _move_." Wayne jerked his head to the side as if he was actually the one who was going to be calling the shots here. He wanted Joey because Joey had Jason but tough fucking luck, Grant happened to call ownership over both. His little brother, his call to make it even. Wayne was tripping if he thought he was gonna roll over at his commands.

"Make me." He grit, sizing up to the older man and they were at the same level, glaring in several shades of dark intent. He was stronger than this guy, light years more durable and able to heal from fucking  _anything_ , who was he kidding with this cute power display?

Joey's careful hand slid around Grant's arm and he crept from behind him, tilting his head back to meet Wayne's line of sight.

"What's this about, Mr Wayne?" He asked with the utmost misplaced respect with a side of polite golden child as if he couldn't read the situation for what it was. Joey wasn't so blond that he couldn't. 

"Give me Jason, Joseph. Return to your own body and let me leave with him, and we can all walk away from this without wounds." 

"Oh  _fuck_  off." Grant gave an annoyed huff. "Thought you pieced it together that you're not a match? Get out or I  _will_  turn you inside out." 

Wayne quietly returned his vision from locking on Joey to meeting back with Grant and he certainly didn't feel the weight of that very real threat.

"You're not going to fight me, Grant." 

"I wouldn't call it a fight..." He cocked his head, deciding on where to strike the first blow. To be honest, he was procrastinating because he wanted Slade to show up. Not because he couldn't take Wayne, he  _certainly_  could, but wouldn't it be less of a snooze fest if dad actually  _saw_  him smash Batman up? Daddy might take him seriously.

"You realise you've left your brother unguarded, don't you?"

"What're you talking about? He's right  _here_." Grant gestured to the very present, very guarded Joey beside him.

"His consciousness is, yes. But not the rest of him. Not his body. He's not where he belongs, which makes him vulnerable to just about anyone in the nearby."

"Wh.... What?" Grant didn't like what the man left implied, the cold flood of unanswered questions and worst case scenarios made quick work of breaking down his cockiness to a base level. Joey gave his big brother a worried look, equally on edge over what Wayne was saying to them.

"Grant, you have about twenty minutes to get to Jason's headquarters and save your brother from the explosive I've left there with him. If you don't, it goes off and blows him up, in which case you can't kill Jason, not as long as Joey's possessing him." 

"You son-of-a-!" Grant tried to cut the fucker in half with a reckless swing of his sword, one that Joey barely dodged as did Wayne, jumping back and nailing him in the shoulder with one of his bat-shaped shurikens. It bounced off his armour but did put him off his course by enough to make him miss the next hack at the man and with the moment of vulnerability his flank presented, Wayne dealt him a kick hard enough to cause a stumble. 

Wayne raised his hands to stop Grant before another attempt to chop him down could be taken.

"That's not all, kid." He kindly let them know through his grit teeth, holding another of his throwy things by the edge of its wing, ready to hurl should they near him. From his compartment laden belt, he produced a detonator, his thumb resting on the switch, ready to push it down.

"But if Joey doesn't go where he belongs  _now_ , I'll set the bomb off right here and you can be left to pick up what remains of him." He meant that, Grant didn't hear a waver of an idle threat in his voice and he ground his jaws until his teeth chipped at the edges. Fuck. Fuck, of course, he should have taken something akin to this into consideration. Why was he so dumb?  Joey could not be more vulnerable when he wasn't in his body.

Quickly, Joey looked at him and silently asked him what they were going to do. He was scared of being blown up, even when he wasn't in his body, and who could blame the kid? If they were going to avoid that outcome, Grant could see no other option than to do as Wayne commanded. It made him angry, so fucking angry to imagine Jason slipping through his fingers again but he couldn't save Rose and he wasn't losing his remaining baby sibling to this madness.

The choice came easier than he expected.

" _Go_." Grant told Joey in a low, seething voice, his rage directed at the man with a metaphorical gun to their heads and a literal bomb ticking away at their casualty. His little brother nodded and at once, the spell on Jason broke, he fell like he had no bones as Joey's consciousness left him. There was a thud when he hit the ground and Grant wanted nothing more than to slam his sword through him, spear him to the floor and watch him choke on his own oxygenated blood, but if he did that, Wayne would kill his baby brother.

The Bat tossed something to him and deftly, Grant snatched it in mid-flight. It was a tracking device with a location beeping on the screen, right at Jason's HQ. That must be where he stowed Joey, at least the fucker had the decency to not make it difficult to find him. It was the fucking least thing he could do after this shit.

"I'm sorry," Wayne told Grant severely like he actually meant that and Grant locked the coldest, most murderous glare on him that he thought he'd only ever use for Jason. 

"You will be." He muttered, promising that right before he let himself out of the window. Bruce watched him jump the levels of the fire escape and disappear down the street, running at an impressive pace considering the weight of the armour on his back. He would get there on time, there was no way he wouldn't and just to save them the risk, Bruce made quick work to remotely disable the explosive from where he was. He'd designed it that way, just to eliminate any chance he might actually hurt that kid. He just needed Grant to think he would and fortunately, the youngster wasn't taking chances. 

He hated doing that, he really did but as he'd told himself, the ends and their means. It made it all justified.

But all three Wilsons would return soon and he needed to make haste. 

He turned his attention swiftly to Jason and the teen was sitting up on the floor, giving a low groan while he pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly disoriented and groggy. It was a common side effect of Joey's unholy powers, common yet temporary.

From the very same compartment he produced the detonator from, Bruce withdrew cable ties and knelt, roughly taking Jason's hands to secure his wrists before he regained his senses enough to fight back. He needed to seize advantage of his dazed state.

"Br - Bruce, what are you doing?" Jason stammered, voice heavy with confusion and he turned his wide eyes from his bound hands to Bruce, blinking rapidly as if he really was at a loss here.  Bruce paused to stare at him in an effort to pick apart his schemes. Now what was he doing? What was he up to by using his name? It wasn't something he would just do for no reason. Whatever.

With a jerk, Bruce pulled the cable ties tight and Jason flinched when they came close to cutting into him. By a handful of his arm, he dragged the teenager to his feet and started for the door, taking fast strides that Jason barely kept up with to save themselves the unpleasantry of running into Slade. Once he found out what Bruce did, he'd be facing a hell storm.

"Bruce, what's going on? What are you doing?" Jason hit him hard with that undertow of blatant worry to his words and the uncertain look he gave him as he was pulled along down the halls of the apartment building.  He stumbled and would have lost his footing were it not for the iron grip around his upper arm.

"Jason, I'm not playing with you so save your breath." Bruce warned him while he took a sharp turn into the stairwell, on the constant paranoid lookout for a glimpse of an eye patch or lock of white hair. Slade wasn't far, Grant could have easily radioed his father by now. Once they figured out it was a hoax, they'd go ballistic. If Bruce didn't want himself or Jason to be torn apart limb from limb, he needed proximity to the Wilsons. And a lot of it.

Bruce kicked the door at the bottom of the stairs off its hinges and dragged Jason with him into the empty street, where the Batmobile sat with its engine purring. 

"B, seriously, what's going on?" Jason anxiously asked and he was doing a really fine job trying to look convincing with the ignorance act. Bruce might believe he was for real if Jason wasn't notorious for these stupid mind games. 

Ignoring him was best.

Opening the side door, Bruce was none too gentle when he shoved Jason into the vehicle and locked him in it, following quickly in suit to take up his place behind the controls.  He cuffed Jason to the door handle before he gave the accelerator a generous push towards the metal, igniting a roar from beneath the hood and the batmobile sped out of the alley, burning rubber. 

His knuckles turned white beneath his gauntlets the tighter he gripped the wheel, jaw set, asking himself how much distance could he get before that insane family was on him at the speed of a car bomb. He'd put himself in their bad books as far as Jason had. 

From the corner of his peripheral, he shot Jason a glance as he tried to squirm his hands from the restraints, a lot of good that effort was doing him. He wasn't kicking up the fight Bruce had been prepared for, if anything, he was behaving more sanely now than he had in a five-year gap. What was the reason for that?

"Why did you put these on  me?" Jason gave the zip ties a jerk, harder than before but lacking the power it would take to break them. He shot Bruce a demanding look, awash with that confusion from earlier, and that was when the Bat realised there was something different about his eyes. Like,  _noticeably_  different. One was solid green, courtesy of the contact lens he was wearing, but the one that was his real colour had reverted to a  bluer shade, stained by only green flecks instead of a complete hue. What the fuck? On top of that, the glitter of insanity, of twisted wickedness, it was faded to the point where he couldn't see so much as a sparkle of it.

" _Jason_ ," Bruce braked with a jolt, directly in the middle of the burnt out and abandoned high way leading out of the city. Urgent, he turned in his seat to face the teenager and half expected to be greeted by his wolfish signature grin but there wasn't so much as a tug in the corners of his lips.

"Do you  _seriously_  not know what's happening?"

"You think I'm asking you for the sake of it?" Exasperated, Jason gave their surroundings questioning glances as if it was all new grounds to him and not a wasteland of his making. Was he really going this far to fake it? Even if he was, he'd had no opportunity to change his eye colour since Joey let him go.

"And what the fuck happened to Gotham? Why is it so black and burned?" He genuinely had no idea he did this, did he? Why? How did this happen? Whatever this entailed, Bruce would have to deal with it later, when they were at a safe distance from Deathstroke and his brood of twisted miniatures. 

Grim, he turned back to the road as he urged the car into motion again.

"I'll explain later, Jay." He muttered under his breath, a deep scowl of thought creasing his brow. What the hell was going on? If Jason was exorcised, as it were, if he was being truthful here, what made it happen? Pyg injected all manner of experimental drugs into him, Bruce remained convinced they were responsible for warping his mind once but could their effect really be undone?

If so... where did that madness suddenly go? Something that all-consuming, it didn't just cease to be. 

* * *

 

Fuck that piece of shit. Grant was ready to go Slade-level demented when he found his baby brother and the bomb that wasn't even fucking ticking towards the detonation. Yeah, the Bat chained Joey to a support beam and he couldn't free himself, but the stack of TNT with the timer wasn't working. It was defused, remotely, it seemed.

Batman was one dead son-of-a-bitch for scaring him like that.

"Sorry it took me, Jo." Grant apologised past the light panting that was the consequence of running through a city of Gotham's size. His breaths and the hard rubber soles of his boots on the cold concrete floor sounded louder than they were next to the unsettling silence. Joey didn't reply and Grant walked around to face him where he was bound, immediately taken aback when he came within clear view. _What....?_

He couldn't see Joey's pupils past the toxic green that had flooded the whites of his eyes,   _pulsating_  colour surrounded by sparks that danced like embers. Joey wasn't looking at Grant even when he stepped directly into his line of sight, not looking past him or through but he went entirely out of focus. His little brother was breathing heavily, lips parted a crack to show the sharp points of his canines.

"J -  _Jo_?" Grant had barely said it before a beam of blinding, burning energy exploded from Joey's eyes and hit him square in the chest. The force of it threw him off his feet without a thing he could do to resist its power, he didn't hear the scream it tore from his throat before the wall he crashed into crumbled under the impact. A rib or two cracked. Heavily, he fell onto his hands and knees, spitting out blood, just when the chains holding Joey snapped and the broken links sprayed across the floor. 

Like a ghost, Joey floated eerily across the space between them. Grant tried to pick himself up but his arm was dislocated, it couldn't take the weight he expected it to and a lance of pain shot through his spine. He gasped breathlessly, at a complete loss as to what was happening. What the fuck was wrong with Joey?!

Grant choked and kicked uselessly as Joey grabbed him by a handful of his throat, lifting him with ease off the ground and holding him aloft to watch him suffocate. Tilting his head, Joey smiled ever so slightly when he took his brother's chin between his index and thumb, turning his face to him.

"Shh, don't panic, big brother. I just need you to look at me, okay?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dudes... i forgot to mention that a side effect of Joey's powers happens to be involuntarily adopting a part of his host body's personality and, you know, our gunslinger has a LOT of personality.  
> .  
> .  
> .  
> Sorry.


	11. And The Walls of Jericho Came Crumbling Down

" _Dammit_ ," Slade muttered when Grant explained everything to him, what Wayne did, he  _used_  Joseph, and now he was going to die. He really was. Metal screeched when it bent under the mercenary's fist colliding into the AC machine, mounted on the roof until he nearly knocked it clean off.

 _"Calm your tits, dad. I'm on my way to get Joey._ " Grant assured him through the comm, there were noises in the background, wind racing past, the beat of running steps,  a momentary silence ending with a thud that sounded like Grant jumped an alley between buildings.

"What's your location? I'll meet you there." Slade raked his hand back through the long sleek strands of his hair, exhaling harshly from the bottom of his lungs. From a logical standing, he knew Grant could handle this just fine on his own, he'd been taught to diffuse bombs at five, the ability to stay level headed no matter the situation was ingrained into  him long before that. He was capable of saving his brother but that should have been the case for his sister as well.

It wasn't that Slade  _distrusted_  his son, he just didn't think he was competent. The stripling had more than earned that.

" _I'm headed to Jason's HQ, basement level_."

"Copy that. I'll see you in a few." He hung up before Grant could, in part to steal the satisfaction of it from him. He was petty like that.

Slade did take those few minutes he promised to arrive at the location Grant gave him, found the basement level with ease but it was too quiet down there, too dark, the air was eerily still with nothing but the illumination of lab equipment to soften the blackness. There was no sign of either of his boys but this was where Grant said they were...

"Grant, status?" Slade said when he pressed down on the comm in his ear after a few laps revealed nothing. He kept his voice low, not liking the way the hiss of his breath filled the entire basement from wall to floor and all four sides. While he listened to the nothingness of the call, his gaze darted over his surroundings in search of his children. Where the hell were those damn things? This better not be a game of Joey's or Grant thinking it was hilarious to give him a false location.

" _Grant_." He bit, growing restless with the radio silence. But he might have preferred the quiet to the noise he picked up next. It was a voice, not a human one but a tinny artificial sound that filled the comm he was trying to reach Grant through. He'd have to be deaf not to recognise the sound of Joey's subvocal transmitter.

" _Dad... I need to talk to you_."  It came from overhead, Slade's attention snapped to the iron support beams he traced the sound to and from up there, at around Joey's line of height, there were eyes staring at him. The first thing that struck him was that those were  _not_  his son's eyes. They were so bright they punctured the metal plates of his suit like armour piercing bullets, alight with a glitter of insanity and an ethereal glow shining like a beacon. They carried nothing in the way of Joey's sweet, kind nature

But that  _was_  Joey.

Slade could see the white of his Defiance uniform against the dark, make out the soft blond curls that usually framed his face cherubically, only now he more closely resembled a demon straight from the bowels of hell.

Raising his hand against the intense radiance shining from Joey's eyes, the mercenary took a  quiet calming breath. So Joey'd gone mad again? He only looked like that when something was really wrong, such as it was when he initially captured Jason, beating that waste-of-space to a  red hooded mush. Perhaps the threat of being blown up freaked him out, taking that he was sensitive to these things.

"Joseph... come down from there and tell me what's wrong." Approach with caution, Slade had learned that was a must when this sort of thing happened. Joey, cute and cuddly though he was, was a  _dangerous_  meta with the powers at his fingertips. If Slade didn't play his cards right, death was a likely possibility. At least until he knew what was wrong.

And he didn't like that he didn't know where Grant was.

A slow smile on Joey's face became a wide grin until it surpassed the capacity of his features.

" _Nothing's wrong. I just wanted to show you something. I made it."_

Lowering his hand, Slade fully locked his gaze on his boy against the blinding glare. Joey's head was tilted in an almost playful way.

"What is it?" The merc was half convinced he didn't really want the answer. Slower than the pace his smile had formed, Joey extended his arm to the side and uncurled his index to point to his left.

" _Look, dad. Look, it's for you_."

 _Thud_. Someone landed heavily on their feet right beside Slade and the lethal blade of a sword sang through the air; he dodged it just barely, getting off with a nick on the side of his neck. His breath caught in his throat with the unexpected attack but he already had every muscle tense for a fight. He ducked another swing of the weapon and struck the person in the ribs, a blow that crashed into them hard enough to draw out a muffled gasp and send them back.

And then with distance reclaimed, Slade actually  _saw_  his attacker.

His heart sank in his chest, mind reeling, what was he looking at? No, not  _what_ , it was Grant. He did recognise his son, even with the haunting appearance of his ashen face. Much like with Joey, his eyes were filled with an unearthly green light but they were shot wide as if he was in a constant state of shock. Flaking rivulets of drying red ran from the corners of his mouth, it was dirtying his upper lip at the bottom of the blood trail descending from his nose. Blood was on the sides of his neck too, leaked out his ears as if something in his head had burst. There were even hellish crimson tear streaks fallen from his eyes.

" _Grant_?" Slade stared, too taken aback to block the next blow. One, two, three, Grant was on him with an animalistic growl, beating him back in a rhythm of constant punches. There was no thought or strategy to the act, it was mindless.

Having come down from the ceiling, Joey stood by and watched his brother beating his father, a pleased smile on his lips as he rocked back on his heels.

" _Do... do you like it, dad?_ "  He asked in a disturbingly innocent tone as if he proudly presented a first-grade art project. But there was a tinge of nervous hopefulness there too as if he was worried Slade  _wouldn't_  like what he'd done to his brother.  And...  _how_  had he done this? It bothered Slade more than the obvious  _why_. Joseph needed to leave his own body to possess someone, or at least, that's the limitation he'd always been confined to. 

Slade let Grant get away with exactly five hits before he hit him back and even then, it was nowhere near as hard as he was capable. If he'd struck Grant in the face at his full strength, the boy would have a  broken skull to worry about. 

"Joseph, stop this!" Slade ordered, kicking Grant squarely in the gut in such a way that sent him stumbling. He continued repelling his eldest to avoid full-on fighting him. He didn't want to bring guns and swords into this if he didn't have to.

Surprisingly, Joey gave a little hum of agreement and tipped his head in the other direction, gazing at his brother. His already glowing eyes flashed with light and on unspoken command, Grant stood back like a droid shutting down. His eyes remained riveted huge and pulsating as another droplet of blood rolled over his lashline.

Slade stared at him then snapped his gaze quickly to Joey.

"What the  _fuck_  have you done?"  He demanded angrily, or he sounded it but he was in a place of extreme concern. Something was badly wrong with Joey and Slade had a terrible feeling it was transferred to him from Hood's rotten corpse. Sometimes, Joey could pull dominant character traits over to himself from the people he possessed and if that was the case now, they were all  _fucked_.

" _I... I fixed him, dad_." Joey's brow was furrowed, confused by Slade's tone.

" _Grant never listens to you but now he will. He'll do as you want. He can't say no. Try it._ "

Slowly, Slade returned his attention to Grant, dreading those words from Joey's lips.

"Grant, snap out of it." He quietly told him, he meant it as an order but it came out sounding like a plea. That was the only thing he wanted Grant to do. He'd never seen Joey use this power of possessing someone from his own body, he didn't know what the ramifications were. It reminded him of Adeline and Wintergreen often spinning conspiracies that Joey didn't use his powers to their limit, that the kid could do things he had no idea about. Whatever the fuck was wrong with him, it broke down that barrier of limitations.

Slade watched Grant, waiting, hoping,  _praying_ , for what he said to go through, for his kid to break out the trance with rapid blinks and a shake of his head, followed by a colourful string of profanities as always. But there was none of that. No change. The mercenary reached out and shook Grant by his shoulder rather roughly but then when that bore no fruit, he drew his hand back and slapped him across the face hard enough to bruise. There was no flinch or reaction other than Grant straightening himself out and blinking very slowly. 

If Slade hit Grant, the natural response was to be hit right back, often times more forcefully than the initial blow. He hated this. 

"Joey, I want you to undo this.  _Now_." 

" _You don't... you don't like it_?"  Joey sounded genuinely hurt, or he looked it rather, his frown pushing his blond brows into a scrunched up expression. 

"I don't fucking like it. Let him go." 

" _But... I did this for you, dad. You always say you wish Grant would listen. He'll listen. I made sure_." 

" _Joseph_..." He growled the warning, a complete stranger to using the foreboding tone of voice in Joey's case, it was always reserved for Grant and even Rose on the occasion. And Joey didn't take well to it. 

" _I did this to make you happy_." He glared, fingers tightening into fists shaking with anger.  He floated off the ground, gradually rising above it a few feet with the sparks of green embers dancing from his narrowed eyes once more, sparking like a malfunctioning machine. Slade seldom saw anything remotely as threatening and maybe that was because he knew Joey was someone to fear. 

But he still wouldn't go along just to appease him.

"I'm not happy." 

Joey hovered motionlessly for a moment as he let those words sink in, first burn their meaning into his skin but then seep through to the muscle and marrow. It was a fair description to say he exploded.

" _Nothing is ever good enough for you_!" Joey crashed into him the way a freight train would, able to throw him off his feet and Slade would have been on his back had his son not grabbed him around the throat.  _Fuck_ , he knew Joey had enhanced strength like his siblings but being picked up and dragged with him where he flew was something Slade had admittedly put past him. He tasted blood when Joey slammed him into the fucking ceiling, cracks spreading across the concrete. By the front of his suit, he was drawn away only to be thrown back against it. 

Slade rolled with the punches and all the blows Joey could toss at him, ignoring the fact that there were eighteen ways to end this here and now. He'd hurt the kid if he had to but not down here, his little rage fit was destabilising the basement's support pillars. 

" _You're. Never. Happy. With anything I do_!" Joey yelled at his father in between strikes that were leaving his yellow gloves streaked red across the knuckles. The deep colour was distracting against the contrast of his uniform that way. But not quite as distracting as the glowing green orbs fixed hauntingly on them from across the crumbling room. Grant was just standing there, staring with no order from Joey to fulfil. Over Joey's shoulder, Slade briefly made eye contact with his other son but Grant didn't lock onto it. 

Slade caught Joey's fist in his own, fingers curling around to envelop him and when he pushed back, the kid suddenly wasn't so strong. The bones in his hand cracked and broke before Slade realised quite how hard he squeezed, Joey flinched violently but didn't suffer the brunt of it more than he wanted to hurt Slade. Kill him, most probably. He was spending too much time with his big brother.

Grunting, Slade actually caught himself when Joey threw him again, at the ground this time but he angled himself to land on his boots, not that far from where Grant was standing aimlessly by. That must be why he soon found a sword in his side, crashing through the armour and kevlar in quite a familiar action from his eldest. Slade gave a noise of pain he muffled with his teeth on his lip, the blade sank deep into muscles and organs, a gush of blood erupting. The weapon sliced clean into him.

Every now and again, at times such as this, the mercenary found himself regretting not picking that third option at the women's health clinic. If Adeline had been up for it, maybe he wouldn't be dealing with his rabid offspring.

Slade punched Grant in the face, quite likely breaking his jaw but it worked to send him back some, stumbling with a whole new red trail forming down his chin. In the same movement as hitting his boy, he yanked the sword from his side, stained crimson with his own blood, and without a hesitant thought, put the whole thing through Grant's thigh. The kid screamed, the first real reaction from him that was separate to Joey's mind, but Slade ignored the sound to drive the blade deep into the floor, pinning Grant to it, on his knees. As expected, the dumb thing tried to yank it out but only hurt himself by touching it. 

The next thing Slade hurriedly became aware of was the intense blinding green light filling his peripheral and he threw his arm up to shield his vision just a second before Joey fired that deadly energy ray of his at him, a single glance and he might find himself in his son's possession. Damn medusa brat. 

This was a problem. This was a very real problem and yet Slade found himself focusing more on the support pillars holding the basement's roof up and how they weren't doing so good with Joey hurling him into them all in turn. This place would cave really soon. The idiot kids didn't realise, did they? They were going to bury themselves alive down here.  Of course, it was left to their father to make sure they didn't die.

Sometimes, Slade had the worst good ideas.  Firing a grapple at Joey? That was a bad idea. Firing it  _through_  Joey? That... that one was worse. And he went with it anyway. The sharp head rocketed through the kevlar covering his kid's middle like it wasn't shit, cutting through him with even more ease, the hooks flared once they were through the other side, sinking into his back. Predictably, Joey screamed in pure agony, the white front of his suit splattering with a red stain. He jerked and tried with both hands to pull the cable from Slade but the pain gravely weakened him. It didn't stop his attempts though. What a  _dumb_   _brat_.

Dragging a thrashing Joey behind him like a morbid kite, Slade looped the other end of the cable into a lasso and threw it over Grant, pulling it taut with a sharp yank, trapping his arms to his sides. He squirmed but ultimately, really couldn't do a lot before his father graciously removed the sword impaling his leg.  

"You start trouble and I'll break your fucking neck again." Slade warned him and was greeted only by those disturbing eyes, void of life. Grumbling, the merc pulled his son to his feet and dragged both the children with him, attached to opposing ends of the grapple. Yellow gloved hands holding his tether, Joey'd stopped struggling as much but he was still pulling and leaning far back to make it harder for Slade to walk.  

It reminded him of six-year-old Rose trying to walk her pet great dane once upon a time.

The ceiling was falling down in chunks, Slade hastened to weave around the deadly debris and get to the stairwell before it all collapsed. Grant-inflicted blood loss made him woozy even as his healing factor centred around his gaping flank, sealing it shut as fast as it could work. His kids had their healing factors doing the same, he would assume, which was just great 'cause he  _really_  needed them at full strength right now. 

Thank fuck this place only had one subterranean level because it was becoming evident Slade couldn't restrain his kids for much longer, Joey was the particular problem, he was growing increasingly aggressive the more he healed. The moment they were above ground, Slade released the line and let his middle child pull his first one around like tackle on the end of a fishing hook. 

As expected, Joey rocketed at him and Grant was swept off his feet,  dragged along without his consent, and Slade let the lunatic blond chase him out of the building. Once they were outside, away from the crumbling infrastructure, they could fight all Joey wanted.

They burst out into the open air and moonlight, into an empty street and Joey immediately turned his flight course up with a sharp turn.

" _Dad_!" He yelled and Slade glanced at the sky to see what he was doing, only to realise his attention was very warranted. Joey was wearing an evil smirk, hovering meters off the ground. He'd snapped the line and taken the grapple out, his wound was closing rapidly and he held the wire in both hands. And then he yanked, the lasso slipped over Grant's shoulders and closed around his neck.

Grant choked when he was yet again lifted off the ground, kicking and trying to get his fingers around the noose. Joey - that twisted brat - pulled his brother higher and higher but Slade put a stop to it at once, hurling his sword at the cable. It broke with a loud twang, Grant fell onto the ground and Slade took shots at Joey before he could do any worse harm.

With skilful twists and swoops through the air, Joey dodged the hail of bullets, only being nicked here and there. He unclipped an explosive from his belt, a weapon Slade didn't know he carried, and he hurled it at his brother and father. It was a magnesium explosive with a blast radius of over ten meters, it'd be devastating up close.

Slade ran, he ran and he grabbed Grant, shielding him from the rush of fire that threw them both across the ground. It burned the kevlar and armour covering Slade's back, singed his hair and exposed skin, hitting the ground knocked the breath from him. He was aware he fell on Grant, the gasp was telling but it was preferable to him taking the blast. They rolled a couple of times, Slade's arms wrapped tight around his son, who stayed there even after the motion stopped.

Gritting his teeth, the merc shot a look overhead, expecting to see Joey but there wasn't so much as a glint of his green energy.  He was more than fast enough to fly out of sight in a matter of moments but where the hell did he go? Why?

Slade didn't have the time to think about that, not when Joey could return at any second and it was still unclear exactly what was wrong with him. Jason, obviously, but that couldn't be the depth of it. God, Jesus, fucking hell, where was the end of this chaos?

On his side, Slade straightened and immediately looked to Grant, not sure what he was waiting to see but him still not moving of his own volition was disappointing. He stared at nothing, not even blinking. The blood on his face had dried but the green glow emanating from behind his eyes wasn't gone, not even with the distance they had to Joseph.

This wasn't right, this proximity. Grant was supposed to throw Slade off and curse him to his grave for touching him, but it's like he wasn't even there in his own head.

Sighing, Slade got off his son and stood, Grant sat slowly up. The wound on his leg was gone, the armoured collar of his suit had protected him from a splintered larynx when Joey tried to... No, trying to kill their father, that was acceptable from all the kids, expected even, but they were not to harm one another.

God's sake, what was he going to do about Joey? Slade entertained the idea of calling the boy's mother and making this her problem but that would just end in her bitching his ear off. 

"Come on, you." Slade took Grant around his wrist and the boy followed him without a pinch of resistance,  tagging along like the obedient son he never was. How the fuck was he supposed to fix this? This was just great; his daughter was dead, one son was presently brain dead and the other a raving lunatic. This did not reflect well on his parenting.

"Let's go find your damned brother."  He grumbled that beneath his breath. He had no idea what he was going to do and he didn't want to think about what this might lead to.

* * *

 

"That's it, come out from there." Kneeling, Cass offered a potato chip to the little girl who'd crawled behind the water heater and was refusing to come out. Sasha's big angry eyes drilled into her, the chip, and then back to her. Clearly, she wanted it, the poor thing was probably famished, but she wouldn't budge from her hiding spot. Why one may ask? Well, it was obvious,

"I want Jay!"

Cass sighed. This  _again_?

"I can't give you Jay. I do not know where he has gone." Last she heard, Joseph - wearing Jason's skin - had gone out to build gallows with his brother and father. Which meant they had Jason and he was going to die shortly, she may as well try to coax Sasha out of there. She was going to have to get used to the idea of living Jayless.

"I'm not coming out unless I have Jay." Sasha rebutted but still snatched the chip from Cassandra's hand. She let her get away with it, watching her stuff the whole thing into her mouth and swallow without more than two chews. Slowly, Cass reached back into the crinkling bag and took out another chip, reminding herself to thank Joseph later for always carrying snacks on him.

Eyeing her suspiciously, Sasha's glare narrowed but she inched towards the treat she was offered. She was wedged so deep behind the boiler that Cass wasn't getting her out unless she chose to come.

"I want....  _Jay_." Sasha stretched her arm out as far as she could, trying to reach the chip Cassandra intentionally kept just a little too far.

"You can't have Jay but you may have this potato chip if you come out."

"But.... Jay-"

"- Is not here."

Sasha considered the proposal, she seriously did, but then her attention snapped to the doorway and she smiled broadly. She  _beamed_.

" _Jay_!!" She yelled in elation, rushing out of her hiding spot and running past Cass. Cass turned just in time to see Sasha throw her arms around Joey, or who she assumed was her friend masquerading as Jason, since surely they wouldn't have let him go. He was there with Bruce, shocked beyond belief when Sasha hugged him. He sent Bruce a majorly confused glance while she clung to his legs.

" _Joseph_...?" Cass cocked her head questioningly and Bruce responded with a shake of his.

"This is Jason, we don't know where Joey is. Have you seen him?" He sounded urgent, like a lot was at risk here but Cass was busy asking herself why the hell Jason was free. Bruce wasn't stupid, he would confine the Hood if he were an immediate risk so what gives? Were... were they friends now?

Her confused look must have been obvious on her face as she stared at Jason. It was difficult not to draw her katana and skewer him. He'd earned it.

"Cassie, I think when Joey returned to his own body, he pulled the madness from Jason back with him. We need to find your friend, he could be very dangerous with Jason's mindset-" 

" _Oh Mr Wayne_..." 

They all looked to the window, Joey was floating there, just behind the parted glass and he was smiling so widely it didn't look natural. Why were his eyes glowing? A cold shiver went down Cassandra's spine, she didn't like the look of this at all. Bruce had really been onto something, hadn't he? That... that was not her Joey, she could tell from just the glance. The front of his suit was caked with a drying bloodstain and it greatly worried her. Was he alright? Was he hurt?

"Jericho!" Sasha sounded happy to see him from where she clung to Jason's leg and impaired his ability to walk. Apparently she didn't pick up on the menacing vibes Joey exuded like waves from a radio tower. Her elation must make her senses inept. She didn't notice Jason's confusion concerning her either.

"Joseph, son, we know what's wrong with you," Bruce began, hands raised with his palms facing  Joey as he approached cautiously, a serious frown on his features. 

"Let us help you before you do something that will get someone hurt." He offered it as a calm alternative to whatever was on Joey's mind but he wasn't having it. He tilted his head and somehow, his smile broadened.

" _Dad's really mad at me_."

"He's probably worried about you."

"...  _Wanna see something? Something I found in Hood's basement_?" As if being controlled by a string on his back, Joey suddenly jerked away by several meters before he turned to fly a small distance. Cass and Bruce hurried to the window to see where he'd gone and by the catch of her mentor's breath, Cass was sure he realised how royally they were screwed. 

Arms spread in a proud way to show off his accomplishment, Joey hovered above a mass of people, tens of them, all with glowing green eyes like his. It took Cass a heartbeat to realise those were no ordinary people with him; they were metas and supers, recognisable despite their tattered uniforms. She recognised the likes of Starfire and Cyborg, Kid Flash and Bizarro, who'd all gone missing in Gotham, presumed dead or captured. And the aforementioned were just the tip of the iceberg, she couldn't count how many Joey had there, all standing like zombies, waiting on his command. He had an army of devastatingly powerful supers in his control. _Fuck_.

" _Hood just had all this firepower locked up in his jail block_..." Joey told them, it sounded like a taunt, a 'wait until I unleash this on you'. Cass didn't like this version of her friend. Not one bit.  

Grinding his jaw, Bruce looked from Joey's army back to Joey himself, knuckles turning white around the windowsill. He must have calculated that there was absolutely no way they were winning if they were against all those metas. 

"What are you going to do, Joseph? To us? To Gotham?"

Nonchalantly, Joey shrugged.

" _I dunno yet but d'you wanna find out_?"

"No."

" _Yes_."

" _No_."

" _YES_!  _Yes, yes - yes!_ "

* * *

 

**Sorry but this image is too haunting not to illustrate XD**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You realise one person can be blamed for all this, don't you? And it's not Jason or Joker or Mask or Pyg. It's Grant Wilson. Think about it, back when, he gave Jason the gun that pissed Joker off, Joker shoots Jay and after driving him to the hospital, Dick finds the drawings in Jay's backpack that piece it all together for him. He goes after Joker, shoots Jay instead. Later, Grant frees Jason, no questions asked, and willingly goes along with helping him destroy Gotham. He's saved Jay's life numerous times and is basically the only reason any of this happened, seeing as how Jason wouldn't have been able to do any of it himself.
> 
> Bravo, I guess, Wilson child. BRAVO.


	12. New Normal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *loads rifle, cocks firearm and rests it comfortably against shoulder. Proceeds to close one eye, take a single readying breath and aim for the feels*
> 
> *Samuel L Jackson voice*
> 
> Bang, bang, bang, motherfucker.

"I've looked everywhere for you! I looked here and I looked in an - another place and I went back home but then I came back here - there were so many places where you _weren't_!"

Jason was sure blood was no longer running to his leg with the girl's worryingly strong arms viced around his thigh, the point of her chin was leaving a bruised indentation in his muscle where her head was tipped up and she was smiling at him. Who was she? She thought she knew him and Jason was half-convinced she did and he was the one at fault here. There was a lot he didn't recall.

Bruce briefly explained to him that over the past few years, he'd been more than a little bit insane, something to do with a... _serum_ of Pyg's? Jason remembered being shot, he remembered waking up when he shouldn't have, and then Bruce.... Clear as day, he knew he'd been safe with the man protecting him for some reason. None of this would have happened if he'd just stayed there.

But Joker.... when everything was fine, Joker showed up. He told him that Grant was hurt - _badly_. That he'd gone out with his dad and been shot, which Jason immediately believed because Slade often took his son with on dangerous missions but also... the problem was he believed Joker. He still _trusted_ Joker. And that turned out to be perhaps the biggest mistake he'd ever made. Grant wasn't hurt, he was _never_ hurt, Joker just knew how to manipulate Jason and which strings to pull to get him to do anything. He loved his friend, that was definitely effective. Which must be why the clown and Black Mask promised to kill Grant if Jason tried to get away from them again.

So that's why Jason didn't fight them all that much and with enough torture and electricity filling his brain over the years, the memories of Bruce hazed over. Just like memories were hazed over now. He wasn't sure he wanted to remember all the things he'd done. Not if they involved why Gotham was the way it was now, a burned, charred wasteland heavy with the stench of blood and death.

But this girl looking up at him with the happiest smile, she was familiar, if only distantly. Slowly, uncertainly, Jason moved his hand backwards through her hair and she leaned into the touch with a content purr.

Then he looked up to see what Bruce and that Asian girl - _Cassie_? - were doing, he'd not really been paying attention. Oh right. They were talking to... Joey. _Joey_? Since when was Grant's baby brother able to _fly_? And when did he get so grown up and threatening? Wait. Jason was missing the point here, _somehow_ , Joey was controlling a legion of some of the most powerful metas and supers on earth and that couldn't end well.

"What are you going to do, Joseph? To us? To Gotham?"

" _I dunno yet but d'you wanna find out_?"

"No."

" _Yes_."

" _No_."

" _YES_! _Yes, yes - yes!_ "

" _Jo_." Jason stepped in where he had absolutely no weight to throw around, but he'd known Joey for over half of his childhood, they'd played together now and then, didn't that give him some kind of a handhold here? Though it all depended on whether or not his insane half had done something terrible to the kid too. Seemed the evil alter-ego hadn't spared anyone.

"Jo, I know you don't wanna hurt anyone. You're not like that. Whatever was in me, that thing that makes you want to kill people, it's messing with you now. This _isn't_ you."

A blond head was cocked to one side and the smile teetered wider, the unearthly glow of his eyes brightening.

" _My name isn't Jo. It's Joey_." Technically it was Joseph but alright. Whatever he wanted it to be.

"Okay, _Joey_. Trust me, I know this thing is hard to fight but _please_ , you gotta try. We both know you can." Jason's urges were ones he wished he'd once been told himself, he just wanted them to go through to the kid before he did anything remotely as bad as the Hood had.

Joey tilted his head to the other side, hands behind clasped behind his back, hovering motionless in space. He was considering what Jason said to him but not for more than three seconds.

" _People always thinking I'm this golden angel child who couldn't hurt a fly... I wanna bash my dad's skull in so bad sometimes. He spends all his time fawning over the kids who despise him when all I'm tryna do is please him. He's gonna regret that. A lot. How's he gonna pretend I don't exist now_?" He gestured to the metas standing in ranks behind him, all waiting for a signal from him to act.

"So that's what this is about? You want Slade to notice you?"

" _Nah, that sounds more like Grant's kind of daddy issues. I want Slade to be afraid of what I can do. Maybe he'll regret making my brother his protegee_."

"Joey, it's ridiculous to go this far just for that."

" _Says you_." He scoffed. " _You killed thousands upon thousands of people to prove a point to some cop. A point that doesn't even matter_." Jason had no memory of that but he didn't put it past himself to have done so. Why didn't Joker just kill him and prevent this all?

The girl was still clinging to his leg, nuzzling his thigh and Jason was becoming increasingly aware of the numbness spreading through the limb. Not breaking eye contact with Joey, he reached down and tried to pry the thistle from him and restore circulation, except she climbed up his arm and settled on his shoulders. Jason sighed when he was pretty sure she just started eating his hair. What was going on? _Seriously._

"Joseph, you must stop this _deplorable_ behaviour. Think about what you're doing." Cass snapped at Joey, considerably less patient than all other attempts to get through to him. And like any time someone raised their voice, Joey didn't take favourably to it. His smile faded at the beat of a heart.

" _Kill her_." He told no other than Starfire, the claws of his possession sunken too deep in her for her to even frown against the order. Oh fuck. Before anyone could dodge it, a starbolt careered through the window and burned the frame, it would have shattered the floorboards if it hadn't hit Cassandra square in the abdomen first.

She screamed, Bruce yelled her name in alarm, she was hurled into the wall meters behind and fell down it without resistance of any sort. The solid smack of her body colliding with it was sickening, bones surely broke but it was just the beginning. A column of fire from Kori's fingertips flooded the room, Bruce grabbed Cass while Jason held the little girl to his chest; they barely got out of there before they would have been toast.

Kori scorched the water heater Sasha had been hiding behind, the metal cylinder couldn't take the intense heat and decided to worsen their predicament by blowing up. The blast swept Jason clean off his feet, he tasted blood when he hit the ground and the girl squeaked like a rubber dog toy, holding onto him more insistently. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

His skin was burned, stinging with no end in sight. His vision stung from all the smoke that rushed into his lungs every time they expanded and tried foolishly to take a breath. Frantically glancing to his surroundings, all Jason could see was fire. The hectic beat of his heart and Sasha's terrified whimpers drowned out by the loud crackling of the blaze devouring his surroundings in its greedy inferno. Shit. Shit, he and the girl were dead if he didn't get them outta here now.

Jason scrambled back onto his feet, weight barely held by the caving floor and didn't get the chance to think before his wrist was snatched in Bruce's vice hand and he was dragged along, stumbling to keep up. Bruce had Cassandra over his shoulder but there wasn't any blood, just the miasma of burnt flesh and gut-wrenching wound penetrating her back, all the way through her. The sight of it made bile build beneath Jason's tongue. It was wider than the width of his wrist. Maybe both of them. No one could survive that, no one who wasn't a Wilson. He couldn't see her face but her hands were white as snow and her chest wasn't expanding with breaths. Oh god.

There was a window up ahead, glass shattered and frame burning but it was a welcome sight and a promise of untainted oxygen that Bruce lead them towards. Jason could feel his skin tightening around his bones as the intense heat sucked the moisture out. The oiled leather of his jacket caught alight, the only thing protecting Sasha from the tongues of fire. He ripped himself from Bruce's grip to try batting the flame rapidly eating its way up his arm. The burn engulfed his limb, making every nerve scream out in pain until he uttered some breathless noises to go along with it. Fuck. Fuck, fuck-

Bruce caught the front of his hoodie, spun him around and shoved him out the window. The blackened spears of glass that remained clinging to the edges of the frame shattered and cut through any part of his suit that was charred to weakness. Jason scarcely felt the shards part his skin against the sharp rush of howling wind. Landing on his feet wasn't an option, there wasn't time, he just about managed to angle himself to protect Sasha from the impact before the ground came. The blow shot all throughout him, hitting every receptor and tiny muscle, threatening to tear him apart. His half-strangled gasp of pain went unheard by his brain.

White-hot lances of pain shot behind his closed eyes, an unsupervised firework show going rampant in his head. God that hurt. _Jesus Christ_... But he couldn't stay down. That was also not an option.

Groaning wetly, blood in his mouth, Jason turned laboriously onto his side, uncurling his arm from around Sasha. His sleeve was incinerated almost entirely, the crispy charred patches revealing the angry red first-degree burns left behind.

The girl was pressed tightly to his chest, holding fistfuls of his hoodie and hiding her face in it.

"Jay, I - I'm scared." She whimpered.

"Sasha-" Wait. He remembered her name? Jason hadn't noticed when it came back to him but he couldn't waste time wondering. He purchased solid ground beneath his hand and with a grunt, pushed himself up, amazed that nothing was broken. From above, ash and embers fell like rain and he had one singular thought; where was Bruce?

"I've got you, Sasha." Wrapping an arm around her again, he breathlessly assured, sounding a little off with the daze that blow put him in. He staggered a small distance, to where he didn't know and a loud thud hit the ground beside him. Bruce. Bruce, of course, glided down from the window with the agility of an aerobatics professional.

Except he was alone.

"C - Cass?" Anxious, Jason searched him for the little Asian girl but there was no sign. And by the dark look in Bruce's eyes, the grim twist of his features, there wouldn't be. God no... Joey killed her. Joey killed Cassandra because Jason's twisted, tainted mind poisoned his. He was sure he would have stopped to feel all the whirlwind of motions regarding that had Bruce not taken his arm roughly and started pulling him in a new direction.

"We need to get away from Joseph. He's too dangerous now." His voice was stock full of authority and his mission-comes-first self but his words were weighed down the way anyone rarely heard. He was angry and he was sad. _Cassandra_. Jason caught him blinking faster than a person naturally would and tried to hide he noticed. Fuck. Fuck, this was all his fucking fault. All his fault from the first death to the very last. How did he become this thing that lead to - to _this_? There had to be a way to fix this. A way out. A way to take it all back. There had to-

Bruce pulled them against the cover of a building wall when the flyers in Jericho's armada soared overhead, looking for them, no doubt. Or any sign they survived that replicate of Dante's Inferno. Most of them did...

Starfire, Bizarro, a couple of others Jason didn't recognise, they passed without seeing them but it wouldn't be long before Joey had men on the ground, searching. They'd be harder to escape.

What the hell were they supposed to do now? How were they supposed to defeat fucking _Joey_? Never in his life, did Jason think he'd be faced on the opposite end of the battlefield by his childhood best friend's little brother. Speaking of, where was Grant? Jason had this pit of dread that grew and grew with the fear that he'd killed or hurt him too. He wanted to believe he'd never cross that line but that should have been the case with all of this.

But then as if to purposefully answer his question, a sword crashed into the wall half an inch from his head. Yelping in surprise, Jason just about dodged the deadly blade of the weapon that sought to cut him in two and Bruce, well he caught the fist of the man whose only desire was to kill Jason.

Slade Wilson. Grant's and Joey's dad. His clenched hand in Bruce's enveloping one, he aimed another punch at Jason, uncoordinated by the sheer rage burning so strongly that the starbolt was almost no comparison. Jason figured he'd done a lot to earn the hit, he didn't bother moving out the way of the next one and would have gladly let it break his face, but damn Bruce and his lightning reflexes.

"Slade, don't do this now." He ordered and shoved the enraged mercenary back by several paces, and that was impressive, considering only one of them came with built-in super strength.

"Do you have _any_ idea what you've done?" Slade demanded aggressively and it looked like he'd pounce to kill at any second.

"Your miserable brat has _corrupted_ my son. He tried to kill his brother-"

"We know." Bruce cut him off, just as angry. "And he succeeded in killing _Cassandra_ , his best friend. But this _isn't_ Jason's fault. _You're_ the one who put aside all regard for your son's wellbeing when he was possessing Jason, just to make sure you'd get what you wanted."

Slade's jaw ground, eye narrowing to a dangerous intensity of murderous fury. They continued going off about something but Jason didn't focus on it, how could he when he noticed the person standing off to the side. His heart sunk deep into a cavernous space in his chest. Grant. Upon only the first look, it became hauntingly evident that there was something very wrong with him. Jason had wanted to see his eyes above anything, that clear confident husky blue that'd so often made things fall into place, but in its place was an unearthly green light matching Joey's.

Grant wasn't doing anything but standing in place, holding nothingness in a thousand-yard-stare.

Quietly, Jason stepped past Slade and Bruce while they were busy going back and forth, gripping Sasha tighter to himself as he tentatively approached Grant. He didn't react, he probably wasn't even aware there was any movement near him.

"G... _Grant_?" Jason extended his arm and gave his former playmate a light push on the chest, hoping against hope that it wouldn't take more for him to come around. But it's like he didn't even feel it.

The burned blond streaks running in veins of colour among Grant's natural sable hair, it stood out to Jason. It looked like a gone-wrong dye job done in haste but... why was he distantly recalling in flashes the potent stench of bleach and a cacophony of screams and ragged panting?

No. No, Jason didn't want to think he'd done any of the things his brain was painting out in glimpses. Not to Grant. He was... he was _Grant_. Jason loved him in so many ways, for so many reasons, why would he ever hurt him?

"... What have I done to you?" He whispered that under his breath, horrified with himself at merely the tiniest idea. Hand shaking, Jason reached out to place it on him, for what reason he didn't know, but Slade was ever vigilant.

"Do _not_ touch him, Hood." He yapped, storming over to shove Jason as far from his son as one movement would allow. Jason just about managed to make sure he didn't drop Sasha when he stumbled back. When he caught his footing, he looked to the ground, mumbling a disheartened,

"I'm not Hood." He was. He was Hood, Hood was him. They wore the same skin, bore the same name, the same history. But... Jason didn't want that to be true. He didn't want any of this to be true. He wanted to wake up from this nightmare and find everything was actually alright and no one was in pain or dead because of him.

Jason expected Slade to go off on him, beat his bones to splinters and he would have welcomed it, but instead, the mercenary disappointingly spun back around to face Bruce.

"What the hell are we going to do about Joseph?"

"Didn't you say you'd kill him if something like this ever happened?" Bruce cocked a brow with a humourless expression. He was serious, just as he always was, but Jason heard a dry note of sarcasm there too.

It didn't sit well with Slade, that was a given by the deepening of his scowl, except he managed to hold himself back from maiming the Bat.

"That's the very last resort. There's something else we can do - there _has_ to be."

"Joey has an army of metas at his command, that's the real problem here. We need to find some way of breaking his possession on them. I don't know enough about his powers to know how we could do that-"

"I've only ever seen Joseph release someone because he wants to. I don't know how to _make_ him."

Listening to them, Jason experimentally raised his hand and waved it in front of Grant's face, garnering no reaction, as expected. Hmm... Joker used to tell him the eyes were the window to the soul, that you could tell a man's truest, deepest intentions if you could look deep enough into them. They were the means to control a person, what they saw was imprinted into their brain and anyone could control the imagery. Anyone.

"His eyes..." Jason uttered in realisation, slowly turning back to the others. Bruce and Slade were looking at him, in question but he didn't miss the mercenary's desire to kill him, barely hidden beneath all that professional coldness.

" _Joey's_ eyes, Jason?" Bruce asked him.

"What about his fucking eyes?" Slade snapped less patiently.

Jason glanced between them, momentarily asking himself which one he should reply to before he quickly determined it made no difference.

"That's how he controls them. With his eyes. Think about it, Joey needs to make eye-contact to form a connection, he turns that connection into something psychic that he can manipulate even when his victims are outta his sight. It's like... it's like Bluetooth or a long distance router. We need to break the connection."

"By... by fucking _blinding_ him?" Slade didn't seem to understand what to Jason, made perfect sense. Stood to reason if he had a whole other mental image forming.

"No! There has to be something else we can-"

"I - I meant blindfolding him." Jason hurriedly mumbled, a little too quiet, too shy. Jesus, Grant's dad scared him when he raised his voice and glared, which was often. He wondered if he'd turned out better if he'd had a father to beat the bad out of him. That'd be many beatings...

Bruce was pinching the bridge of his nose, willing for clear coherent thought.

"That... might work, Jason. It's the only idea we've got. Otherwise-"

" _Daddy_!" A shadow cast over them, a long one that came with an excited yell bearing more than a tinge of insanity. Jason didn't need to glance up to know that was Joey looming like a messenger of death but Slade and Bruce looked immediately, faces filled with mixed feelings. Bruce was tense for a fight. Slade was... well, how do you describe a sociopathic mercenary about to fight his super-powered teenage son?

" _There you are! I've been looking for you - hey, you guys survived the blast! That's so great_." Joey was beaming with a less-than-sane grin splitting his expression wide. The darkening sky behind him only made his bloodstained Defiance uniform stick out more.

"Joseph, this is your last fucking chance to cut this crap out." Slade warned him but why did he bother? Hadn't it been established that his son couldn't be reached at this depth?

" _Daddy... don't be like that_." Joey whined playfully.

Never letting Joey leave his line of sight, Jason carefully lowered himself onto one knee and put Sasha down. She whimpered when his hands came around her ribcage to move her, she gripped his hoodie harder.

"Jay, I wanna stay with you." Sasha whined, her eyes brimming with tears that'd roll over at a single blink. He took her shoulders and met her vision, taking his focus from Joey.

"I'm not going anywhere, Sash. I promise. I just need you to be where you can't get hurt. This could get ugly." Not for one moment did he doubt that, Joey was out for blood and he'd already drawn enough to acquire a taste for it.

"But I can fight! You taught me." She insisted. Jason gnawed on his lip. Of course, he'd done the same as Joker and turned a child into a soldier to fight his battles. _Of course_.

"Sash, I know you can but _please_ , go wait for me in there." He pointed to the gaping dark door of the nearby building, the safest place for Sasha to be. She couldn't be hurt. Jason remembered only one major thing about her and that was that he cared for her, as Hood or as himself.

"O - okay." Sasha agreed with a jerking nod, hesitant but she trusted him. She _trusted_ him. He bet he hadn't earned it.

Jason chastely kissed the top of her head before he ushered her in the direction of the building, watching her go before he rose. He joined Bruce by his side. He was staring up at Slade's youngest son, waiting for him to act while he planned how they would.

"Jason, I need you to do something for me." He murmured, calculating the next move before Joey figured out what he was doing. The kid didn't really seem to have a specific outcome in mind. He was randomly killing and destroying everything in his path. Though at the moment, he was taunting his dad from up there where he was out of reach.

"What is it?"

"On my cue," Bruce laced his fingers before him, it was clear what he wanted. Nodding his understanding, Jason backed away, waited a second for the signal and ran at Bruce. On the last second, he jumped, boot hitting the Bat's hands that sprang up to give him a boost. The lift was impressive, Jason was sent a record height through the air, at Joey, the kid realised the movement at once but was too slow to react.

With a jolt, Jason got his arms around Joey's neck, closing them sharply into strangle hold, his chest to Joey's back to avoid those dangerous eyes of his. Before he could do a thing about said eyes, Joey rocketed heavenward. The suffocating drag of the wind was almost enough on its own to make Jason lose his grip but he held his breath and held tighter, tryna choke the energy out of Joey but it was difficult with his aerobatics. He went high and with no warning, swan dived all the way he'd come, pulling up at the last second and flying loop-de-loops, all in an effort to throw Jason off.

"Joey - _stop_!" Jason urged, fingers wrapped so hard around his own forearm that he was sure he'd cut off circulation. Everything around him was one blurry colour smudge of sights and sounds zipping by too fast to make out anything. 

It became clear quickly that Joey wasn't going to relent with his trick flying session until Jason was thrown off his back, and Jason had to think fast here. Quite blindly, he searched his holsters and the compartments of his belt until his fingertips grazed over the bulk of his taser. Inching, he got a grip around it against the turbulence, holding onto just the edge of it until he got it into his palm.

"Sorry, kid." He mumbled, knew Joey didn't hear, and plunged the crackling mouth of the device into the base of Joey's neck. The moment it connected with him, Joey gave a stuttery cry of pain, all his muscles going rigid and locking up, and the whole fucking world veered to one side. They barrel-rolled at a deadly velocity, 'round, 'round, and 'round like laundry in the dyer, all until his arms slipped around Joey and they were hurled in two different directions. 

Jason braced himself for a world of pain, a shattered ribcage and limbs torn from their sockets, except in its place, he fell into a cradle of strong arms with a thud. Bruce. He knew just by the smell of smoke and rough kevlar that Bruce caught him. Hissing, Jason winced where his shoulder struck the iron bat symbol on the man's chest, praying the fucking thing wasn't fractured. A heavy bone-deep throb would suggest it wasn't all A-okay. 

"Good work, son." Bruce told him when he was put back on his feet, holding his shoulder, fingers curled carefully around it. Fuck, it hurt. Little lances of pain nibbled between the bone and joint as if trying to pry it all apart. 

Bruce jogged from him to the place where Joey'd hit the ground, a trail of torn up earth leading to the small crater Slade was already at. 

"This is the best example I've ever had of why condoms are a good idea." The mercenary grumbled to  himself as he climbed into the pit. Joey wasn't senseless but he was _certainly_ stunned, so much so he didn't object very openly when his father grabbed a fistful of his scruff and picked him out of the hole. Static crackled, sparks bounced from the small mound beneath the collar of Joey's suit that was his subvocal mic, circling his throat. It must have broken with the impact. He was lucky if that was all that did. 

Jason crept slightly closer, cautiously, wary of being within Slade's reach and he kept waiting for the moment the man lost all restraint and just ended him. He had to wonder why he hadn't already. That being said, all of a sudden, Slade caught Jason by his sleeve and the teen jumped in alarm, expecting to swallow his teeth when instead, _riiip_! A sharp yank and the seams of his sleeve pulled apart, Slade tore the whole thing from over his arm with his trademark evil side glare. Jason didn't say anything, he let the mercenary have the sleeve all for his own use, whatever that may be.

It became apparent what he was planning when he held Joey to his chest with one arm secured around his abdomen, winding the strip of cloth over his eyes with his spare hand. He pulled it tight with a jerk, finishing by giving Jason a death leer.

"This better fucking work or you're target practise." 

Jason nodded meekly. That was fair. He'd earned that. That and then some. 

Slade stared at Grant, stared and waited for him to snap out of the trance but twenty seconds ticked slowly by with no change. His scowl hardened. Jason tensed. This was gonna hurt something fierce.

With a light groan, Joey stirred against his father, instinctively moving his hand to paw at the blindfold robbing him of his sight. Slade caught his wrist and squeezed it bruisingly until the limb trembled. 

"Do not move, Joseph." He hissed into his son's ear and disconcertingly, a ghost of a smile flitted over Joey's lips. 

"Why isn't it working, Jason?" Bruce turned to Jason. It had to be  a first when someone as notoriously intelligent as the Bat asked someone like him a question all confused like. Jason wished he had a really smart, logical answer queued up. 

"I... I don't know." Jason confessed with a sigh, running his hands through his hair.

"I'm not an expert on Joey's powers. I really don't know for sure how-" A starbolt struck the ground a foot from him, he sent the smouldering crater an alarmed glance before looking toward the way it had come. Against the full moon, Kori was floating in a force field of wildly dancing fire, another ball of  flames growing around her fist, ready to use. And if that wasn't bad enough, Bizarro joined her. And then Cyborg. And a multitude of other metas, some flyers, some not, circling them on the ground. They all looked ready to kill with the haunting glow in their eyes. 

 _Swish_. Jason swallowed involuntarily when he heard Grant unsheathing his blade, quite sure he already knew whose side his ex-friend was going to be on. It wasn't theirs.

Shit. Shit, they were done for. This was _it_. Not a chance in hell or high water that they were a match for even a handful of these supers. Two old guys, one teenager and one child were supposed to stand a chance against what was equivalent to the firepower of the fucking _Justice League?_

Though still in his father's grip, Joey may not have his sight or his voice but he was more than capable of commanding his armada, and that's what he must have done because, on a hair's breadth, they lunged.  All of them, from all four sides.

Jason's breath caught as he had to duck beneath the sharp swing of Grant's sword, missing it by mere millimetres. It sang over his head and a heavy boot slammed into his ribs before he got the chance to straighten. Yelping, he struggled to catch himself, ripping a gun from his holster and blindly firing it at Grant. All non-lethal areas, of course, but the bullets didn't even hit those, ricocheting off his armour in bursts of sparks.  Oh fuck. At first, Jason had thought perish the thought of fighting him, he never could, but it was quickly put into perspective that he'd be lucky to scratch Grant.  

He was open to death, he really was, but where would that leave Sasha? Until she had someone better to care for her, Jason had to try to stay on this plane of existence. 

Jason ran at Grant, jumping on the last half-heartbeat and wrapping his thighs around his neck, throwing all his weight back, throwing them off balance. They both hit the ground akin to blocks from a crumbling building, hard and without grace, struggling to get up. Jason was fast to straddle him, faster than Grant could move but it was like holding onto smoke, a rock-solid fist crashed into the side of his head; Jason lurched violently to the side with a muffled cry of pain. Grant was quicker that time, he slammed Jason onto his back, the blow rattling through the hollow of his chest, hands closing around his throat.  

Choking, Jason kicked at Grant, his less-than-pathetic hits bouncing off armour, kevlar, and dense muscle mass that didn't even bruise. Grant's green eyes were seething and full of bloodlust, narrowing ever so slightly as he squeezed. It would be fair to let him have this. To kill Jason. Unfortunately, that wasn't an option at the moment. 

Jason managed to free one hand, lightning-fast grabbing Grant around the back of his neck and yanking him into a kiss. The action on its own shocked Grant enough to loosen his grip, the opportunity Jason needed to kick him off. He sent the soldier-of-fortune over him and with a head-over-heels, was back on top of him. All around them, the sound of battle was filling the air, swords and batarangs and bullets and blasts of energy erupting from every nook. Bizarro had Bruce cornered with very little the Bat could do to beat him with no red kryptonite while Slade was surrounded by the likes of Starfire, Cyborg, Wonder Girl, etcetera. He'd already taken a beating and that wasn't surprising, not with the fact that he refused to let go of Joey, which left him with only one spare arm. 

"I'm sorry about this." Jason said right before he whipped his Beretta across Grant's face, slicing a red gash into his cheek that made Jason flinch more than it did him. His mind was racing, how the fuck were they going to get out of this alive? 

And then a ragged scream ripped through the uproar of combat. On instinct, Jason shot a look towards the way it had come; from Slade and Joey. Wh - what the _fuck_? Teeth grit, the mercenary had his knife buried half-way to the hilt in Joey's right eye, blood spilling onto everything nearby. Slade held onto Joey against his wild struggling and ignored the signs of 'dad, stop' and 'hurts'.  Drenched in his own blood, Joey writhed and squirmed, trying to push away from his father with every fibre of desperation in him but Slade was relentless; he caught his son around the neck, ripped the blade out, only to plunge it into his remaining eye, twisting it. 

Another scream.  

Jason stared, utterly horrified with his jaw agape. Even Grant had stopped thrashing beneath him to watch, his brows knit. Bit by bit, the green glow flickered like a dying bulb. It was the same with the other metas and supers. The spell... It was breaking.

Slade tore the dagger out of Joey's skull and spun him around, shoving him onto the ground where he didn't try to catch himself. With a whimpery whine of pain, Joey's arms shook violently as he feebly attempted to drag them beneath himself.  His eyelids were squeezed tightly shut, tears intermingling with the rivers of blood. Suddenly, he didn't look like the deadly metahuman who'd been hunting them down. He looked like a scared seventeen-year-old kid bleeding at his father's feet. 

"J... _Joey_!" Without a care, Grant hurled Jason off himself once he sufficiently came to his senses, bounding to his feet and running to his brother. He was met by the back of his father's hand; Slade bitch-slapped Grant to the floor.

"Don't you dare come make this worse." Slade growled, voice dangerously dark. Harshly, he grabbed Joey and plucked him off the earth, into his arms. The kid was groggy off the pain, he weakly hit Slade in the chest but the effort went unacknowledged. That might have broken the possession but it didn't rid Joey of the madness; he was just too preoccupied to act it out.

"Get up." Slade hissed to Grant, picking himself off the ground. He wiped blood off his lip roughly, husky eyes just as murderous as his father's. Full of fury.

"Go to _hell_." Grant's words trembled with rage, with hatred, and Slade made an irritated, dismissive scoff.

"Feel free to come home once you get over your delicate feelings." He stepped past and Grant glared after like the only thing in the world that he wanted was to kill his father. That strike was the straw that broke the camel's back.

His son's blood ruining his kevlar, Slade shouldered past Bruce.

"You and I are not through." He promised and Bruce regarded him from the corner of his eye, warily. He was holding Sasha, she'd scampered back out while the metas were coming around. They were disoriented and confused, none of them knew what was going on or where they were. They were lucky to have missed it all.

"And _we_ are _especially_ not through." Slade growled to Jason as he passed, Jason took him for his word. The man had a lot of grudges to carry out and wrongs to right.

Jason wondered where the merc was going, hoping and praying he knew a doctor or scientist or someone who could fix Joey - and not just his face. He'd... He'd heal, _right_? He had a healing factor, didn't he?

Following the low exhale, Jason's instinct was to help Grant to his feet but unsurprisingly, his efforts were slapped violently aside.

With a jolt, Grant pushed himself up and snatched Jason's forearm, dragging him a step forward. His injured shoulder _burned_. Jason was ready for a hit or anything as deserving, but Grant took one look into his eyes, saw the different colour, and shoved Jason away like he was the vilest thing.

"So you're _back_." He spat. That wasn't a question, it sounded more like an accusation. Jason wanted to say something but his tongue was paralysed and Grant picked a direction and headed in it. In passing, he gathered his fallen sword and held it in his fist. Where was he going? He was walking in the opposite way to Slade.... Maybe that was the point.

When Jason got a burst of life back into himself, he ran after his former friend. He couldn't just let him _go_. Not after all the shit he'd done to him. Bruce gave Jason a look that said 'that's really not a good idea'. He didn't care.

"Grant, wait!"

"Go get fucked by an anchor." Was the uncaring reply.

" _Please_ , Grant, kill me if it makes things right. I - I'm sorry. I'm _so_ sorry."

He paused, his back to Jason, leather bindings of his sword creaking when he squeezed it. The silence lasted every bit of twenty seconds, the second smallest measurement of time in existence but then, it became the longest. Finally, when Grant looked over his shoulder, Jason felt the tension in his chest release with the breath he'd been holding. He couldn't see the other's eyes with the shadows the moonlight cast over and Jason wasn't sure what mixture of emotions would be there if he did.

"What the fuck's the point of killing _you_? You're not the person who did all this. He got away with it. You're just the pathetic mess that's left." Grant said, voice almost too low to hear and he really wasn't wrong, Jason couldn't argue with that. He couldn't but he wanted to. He wanted his friend back, even when he knew that was worlds too much to wish for. Grant wasn't the person who burned that bridge, he was just one in many who were caught in the fires of it.

Quietly, he lowered his gaze to the floor, to their boots and he wondered how many times the rough souls of his had cut into Grant. The idea made him wince, the notion that it would have happened hurt somewhere there worse.

Grayson should have put a thousand bullets in him. He should have made sure Jason wouldn't come back. Maybe the detective always knew he would become this... this thing. This monster.

"Where are you going?" Jason's voice was barely an octave higher than a whisper, he hesitantly lifted his vision and was immediately struck with the weight of Grant's. During that time his gaze had been downcast, Grant had hidden his face behind his mask, taking away the familiarity Jason once took comfort in, leaving only the glittering red lenses over those forget-me-not eyes.

"I don't know." He tipped his chin a fraction.

"But if I see you there.... I _ever_ see you again, and I'll fucking kill you, Jason. I _promise_." He swore so darkly that the quiver in the taper of his words had to be caused by the amount of restraint it took not to do as he said now. Why didn't he? Jason wouldn't raise a hand in self-defence.

Jason searched Grant's masked face for any bit of his cocky, brash childhood friend but there wasn't so much as a fragmented spirit left of him. Hood had taken care of that. Taken that part of him. Flashbacks of memories of the past that didn't mean anything anymore, they pushed their way into Jason's head.  He knew the second he turned his back, Grant would be gone, ashes to the wind, so a piece of him wanted to hold him captive in his stare forever.

There was a panging in his chest, like a church bell ringing in its tower when Jason turned, whispering a last quiet,

"I never meant to hurt you, Grant. You were my friend. I... I love you."

"... I wish you'da remembered that, _blad_." That sounded far gone, too far to be reached by anything Jason could say, already removed from the conversation long before the sound of distancing footsteps were heard. Walking away. Always away. With every fibre of his being, Jason was fighting the urge to catch his wrist and spin him around, hold onto him, kiss him, make him understand that he never wanted any of this to happen. It was all one stupid fucking roller coaster he never had a chance of controlling.

Despite all the things he wanted to do and make known, repeat until it became reality, he let Grant go. Let him walk away as he should have done so long ago.

And Jason stayed facing the other direction, listening to the silence, sensing his company lessen by one. The soft breath of night breeze swept gently over him, brushing his hair with its careful caress but what came after was only coldness. Not the icy numbness he remembered filling the Hood's chest, but a cold hurting as if a ravine tearing open in him. In part, he longed for the madness he'd poisoned Grant's brother with, it meant this feeling wouldn't exist. But there was enough blood on his ledger to warrant any shred of misery that came in its wake. Jason wanted for his pain to take away the destruction he'd caused. If it could, he'd gladly let himself be tortured all the way to his grave.

Jason found himself entertaining the unknown. Now what? There was nothing he could do to make any of it right and it was the only thing he wanted to be possible.

He started counting. Counting all the names he could remember.

Roy Harper. Dick Grayson. Duela Dent. Rose Wilson. He may as well have killed Joey. Cassie was only dead because of him. And those were only six innocents among thousands. He didn't even know how many there were but there weren't enough good deeds in the world to make up for it.

Jason raised his hands to hold his head between them, fingers grazing over the bullet scar he wished had been fatal, and the traced the mark. One permanent death would have saved this city countless others. It would have saved his best friend's family. Bruce's family. That one too-brave archer who didn't know when to stay down.

Breathing out, he shut his eyes. A tear rolled the length of his cheek.

"Why didn't I stay dead?" And why did he come back as a monster? Jason asked himself that, asked anyone around him, asked _God_ , but no one answered. There wasn't a single reason to justify it.

Of its own volition, something he once said to Dick Grayson reentered his memory, driving in like the sharp stab of a rusted dagger. It felt aeons ago when he said it.

_".... You can't bring something back from hell without expecting it to bring hell with it."_

Maybe Jason had been right. This felt more like hell than any place he'd ever been before.

Somewhere far away, far from here, he was sure he caught the distant ghost of a maniacal cackle, brimming with demented glee.

When all was said and done, every punch was pulled and breath taken, only one person got exactly as he wanted.

_"Oh, you'll be a destroyer alright, munchkin. You'll destroy everyone, everything, and then yourself!"_

"Jason," Bruce had come close without Jason hearing, his hand settling over his shoulder.

"Let's go."

"Wh... Where?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it rushed? Probably? Is it coherent? Probably not. Did I proofread enough? You bet your sweet ass I didn't but I don't care, I like this. Tragedy, sadness, Slade being an appalling dad, all the things we require to end this shit. We've ended it, bt-dubs. Kudos to you if you actually made it.


End file.
